Judge Orders Apple's New Hire to Stop Work

[MacRumors]

The drama continues for Apple's new employee Mark Papermaster who recently took a job at Apple to replace Tony Fadell. The transition has received more attention than usual due to a lawsuit filed by IBM.

Papermaster was said to have a non-compete agreement in place in which he agreed not to work at a competitor for a period of one year following his employment at IBM.

A new report reveals that a District Court judge has now ordered Papermaster to immediately stop work due to the possible violation of the agreement. Papermaster has argued that IBM and Apple are not competitors. Apple has said they will comply with the court's order but "are confident that Mark Papermaster will be able to ultimately join Apple when the dust settles".

Papermaster was hired at Apple to replace Fadell as senior vice president of Devices Hardware Engineering. Fortune provides a detailed timeline of the events of Papermaster's recruitment. Steve Jobs was said to have offered Papermaster an offer he couldn't refuse, a "once in a liftetime opportunity". Papermaster accepted the job offer despite a significant counteroffer from IBM.



Article Link: Judge Orders Apple's New Hire to Stop Work

[firstapple]

Wow, took a while for MacRumors to catch on to this news. I think it was on Gizmodo earlier this morning. I think this will get sorted out soon, and hopefully IBM loses this one.

[dukebound85]

thats a consequence when you sign a non-compete. should have told ibm he had an offer before hand and used it as levergae to possibly get a higher salary at ibm lol

[11800506]

I hope that this mess will get cleared soon, since IBM and Apple aren't competitors and Pagemaster's position doesn't even directly deal with the creation of chips for devices as he is just the head of hardware.

[pismodude2]

I don't think this has any real legal standing, after all, Apple stopped making processors, right?

[arn]

Originally Posted by dukebound85

thats a consequence when you sign a non-compete. should have told ibm he had an offer before hand and used it as levergae to possibly get a higher salary at ibm lol

he apparently did get a large offer from IBM.

Originally Posted by pismodude2

I don't think this has any real legal standing, after all, Apple stopped making processors, right?

what do you think papermaster will be doing at IBM? Apple is said to be working on ARM processors.

arn

[AlphaAnt]

Originally Posted by dukebound85

thats a consequence when you sign a non-compete. should have told ibm he had an offer before hand and used it as levergae to possibly get a higher salary at ibm lol

Rule 1 of changing jobs: Never accept a counteroffer. The fact that it took that to keep you will show that your company loyalty is shot. Most people who take counteroffers usually leave anyway within a year.

There's an easy way to get around the non-compete: jump ship to a job in California. California law has precedent where it has invalidated out of state noncompetes. And if I recall, 1 Infinity Loop happens to be in California. The New York courts were the ones to issue the work stoppage, but Apple can countersue in California courts to have the clause eliminated.

[mogzieee]

Urgh, can't IBM just go screw themselves, please?

[Gm7Cadd9]

by the sound of the previous story it sounds like the court will side with Apple... however it does make sense that they will prevent him from working until the decision is reached. I wouldn't worry too much.

[dukebound85]

Originally Posted by mogzieee

Urgh, can't IBM just go screw themselves, please?

what if you were ibm and your top guy leaves for a similar company after he had signed a non-compete?

i dont know how people can take apple's side on this to be honest as the job would on some level be "competeting" with ibm. tends to happen when you are an expert/specialist in a topic

[rpaloalto]

IBM is just sore from Apple dumping the power pc chip, in favor of Intel.

[mathcolo]

Screw IBM, their microprocessors and all of their technology is crud.

Stop being whiners and don't be so stupid. Apple and IBM don't really compete anyway.

[geerlingguy]

This whole ordeal simply seems 'odd' - I actually avoided one job offer simply because of the non-competitive clause, in addition to some other scary clauses about their right to keep any ideas I had on the job.

I steer clear of companies that don't allow for personal freedom ;-)

Unfortunately, it was an Apple job that I declined :-(

[Kilamite]

Can understand and think it is a fair result business wise. From a consumer point of view who wants the products, it isn't a good turn out.

[Hattig]

Originally Posted by dukebound85

thats a consequence when you sign a non-compete. should have told ibm he had an offer before hand and used it as levergae to possibly get a higher salary at ibm lol

Apple has never been identified as a competitor within IBM when he worked there - that's in his court submission. That pretty much seals it in his favour. He isn't meant to be psychic.

That's before the fact that it is clearly wrong to bar an individual's ability to work where-ever they like. That's a basic human right in this day and age. Or maybe IBM would like to pay all their employees after they leave their work during a period of retraining into an equivalent role - in his case that's probably 20 years or more of experience he would have to gain in a different area of business.

[dukebound85]

Originally Posted by geerlingguy

This whole ordeal simply seems 'odd' - I actually avoided one job offer simply because of the non-competitive clause, in addition to some other scary clauses about their right to keep any ideas I had on the job.

I steer clear of companies that don't allow for personal freedom ;-)

Unfortunately, it was an Apple job that I declined :-(

you cant be serious

of course any company will have the rights to your idea if you are working for them and came up with the ideas as a result of you using their facilities, knowledge, and time

its not uncommon at ALL to sign non-competes and nda's for pretty much any job thats above retail/food type level of jobs

sounds like you need to wise up to how things are done in the real world

[qtx43]

Non-compete agreements are hard to enforce, and arguably not a legitimate agreement in the first place. But IBM and Apple are clearly competitors, the RDF notwithstanding. They both sell personal computers; it's really not a close call.

[Kilamite]

Originally Posted by Hattig

Apple has never been identified as a competitor within IBM when he worked there - that's in his court submission. That pretty much seals it in his favour. He isn't meant to be psychic.

So if a new company that produced chips opened today and he left to work for them would you say the same thing? Since they technically were never identified as a competitor when he was at IBM because they never existed then.

Apple produces ARM processors, that makes them a competitor, whether they were or not at the time he was at IBM.

[dukebound85]

Originally Posted by Hattig

Apple has never been identified as a competitor within IBM when he worked there - that's in his court submission. That pretty much seals it in his favour. He isn't meant to be psychic.

That's before the fact that it is clearly wrong to bar an individual's ability to work where-ever they like. That's a basic human right in this day and age. Or maybe IBM would like to pay all their employees after they leave their work during a period of retraining into an equivalent role - in his case that's probably 20 years or more of experience he would have to gain in a different area of business.

once again, you cant be serious....

when you sign something saying you cant compete or whatnot, then you are agreeing to it. if you dont like it, dont work there. otherwise be prepared to suffer the consequences legally

[rnizlek]

Originally Posted by qtx43

Non-compete agreements are hard to enforce, and arguably not a legitimate agreement in the first place. But IBM and Apple are clearly competitors, the RDF notwithstanding. They both sell personal computers; it's really not a close call.

Last time I checked, IBM stopped selling personal computers when they sold their Thinkpad division to Levano. Though I could be wrong - but I haven't seen or heard of an IBM PC in years.

[cmgallacher]

Buy IBM.

[Hattig]

Originally Posted by Kilamite

So if a new company that produced chips opened today and he left to work for them would you say the same thing? Since they technically were never identified as a competitor when he was at IBM because they never existed then.

Apple produces ARM processors, that makes them a competitor, whether they were or not at the time he was at IBM.

1. Apple haven't made ARM based chips yet.
2. IBM doesn't make ARM based chips, as far as I am aware.
3. Apple aren't making ARM based chips for general sale by third parties, whereas that is a key IBM aim with their PowerPC based chips.
4. Apple aren't going to take business away from IBM, however they will take business away from IBM competitors (Samsung especially) with their upcoming ARM based chips.

I just think this is a very bitter move by IBM. It's just not very classy.

[Hattig]

Originally Posted by dukebound85

once again, you cant be serious....

when you sign something saying you cant compete or whatnot, then you are agreeing to it. if you dont like it, dont work there. otherwise be prepared to suffer the consequences legally

European vs American view I guess.

What about when all job contracts have these clauses? Then you have no choice, you're locked to a company effectively (or you survive on the breadline on social benefits because you choose not to work), because your skills won't be allowed to be used in any other business because that will be seen as a competing company. Then you drive down wages, reduce benefits ... modern day corporate slavery.

That's why many areas have made such terms illegal, such as California.

[patricksan]

I don't know law in USA... but is it easier just to open a third company that hires Mark Papermaster, and this company send invoices to Apple?

[Ade-iMac-177]

Hmm. I don't really see how being competitors is relevant when you consider the position he is trying to take and Apples recent decisions. He may know intimate secrets about the PowerPC architecture or whatever IBM call it now but he is going to work for the iPod and iPhone division so while, yes, he can offer insight in how to design chips it's not like he can give Apple the plans to a Power chip - not exactly the most mobile and power efficient of chips. And Apple are not going to produce competitor Power chips for their servers - they can't do a better job than Intel or IBM when starting from scratch like they would have to do.

I think IBM are doing this just because they are trying to force him to stay with them.