Friday, October 31, 2008
The Papermaster Chase
Apple’s efforts to build its own chip development brain trust out of its acquisition of PA Semi have run afoul of IBM. Mark Papermaster, a 26-year IBM veteran and vice president of its Blade Development unit–a division that designs corporate data centers, plans to take a new job with Apple in early November, and Big Blue is doing its damndest to stop him. The company has filed suit against Papermaster, claiming his noncompete agreement with IBM prohibits him from taking a job with Apple.
Success, as the old adage claims, has many fathers–even Apple’s success, much as CEO Steve Jobs would like to think otherwise. So it’s interesting to hear that among the progenitors of Apple’s current renown is Rick Rashid, head of Microsoft Research. Speaking at Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles today, Rashid talked up his Apple street cred, reminding attendees that he helped develop Mach, the operating system microkernel that’s now the foundation of Mac OS X.
