Palm Reportedly Rejected Jobs' Proposal Not to Poach Each Others' Employees

[Paradigm]

If history is any guide....

Once upon a time, Palm was the be-all and end-all of PDA-type devices. They were the king, and rested on their laurels for too long.

Once upon a time, IBM was the king of the personal computer market. They didn't move, change, or adapt when the world moved under them, and were left behind.

Once upon a time, Lotus was king of the spreadsheets. WP was king of word processing. And so on.

Palm's day is done, unless they really succeed in breaking the market up with a totally new innovation. Right now, all they are trying to do is achieve "as good as an iPhone" status, and (so far) failing at that.

Someday, a device will come along which really will be the "iPhone killer". It's inevitable. Who is more likely to make that device - Palm, Apple themselves, or someone else? So far, the only one who can out-Apple Apple is Apple. The only employee Palm could hire who could change that is Jobs himself. Not too likely...

Well said! I agree, there have been leaders in the past, and when it comes to technology, if and when Apple wants to join a particular technology "war" they jump in with both feet, tend to always have the superior product, and win the "war". With current hardware, I think the only subpar product is AppleTV. Don't get we wrong, it is a great little product, but it's capabilities are limited. It has the potential to be a Mac in one's living room, and doing so much more.

iPhone is far superior than any other product. I have 2 iPhone 3G. My city isn't 3G yet, so I'm usually on Edge or WiFi. My mother has a Pre, thinking it was better than iPhone, she has had nothing but problems with it. Where was touch technology before iPhone? Non existent except for maybe the NintendoDS? And Nintendo is worried that they'll lose the handset gaming war to iPhone.

 

[gilkisson]

Mr. Jobs, I'm sure you could invent that Men in Black mind eraser thing and use it on anyone who wants to leave Apple.

Dude, I would SO buy one of those. Wait, maybe there's an app for that...

 

[dagamer34]

Palm is decent company trying to revolutionize the company by changing business model... (selling only OS and crappy phone to Apple like...)

I have nothing against pre... but I just hate how Palm boast multi-task and describe it as superior WebOS over OSX of iPhone when they, still, have better CPU than iPhone 3GS.

They just have better processor. That's all. It's not OS....

It's easier to make a cohesive argument when you use facts. The iPhone 3GS and the Palm Pre both use a ARM Cortex A8 processor, however the Palm Pre is clocked at 500Mhz, whereas the iPhone 3GS is clocked at 600Mhz.

In other words, the Palm Pre has a SLOWER CPU, not faster.

 

[scroto]

It's easier to make a cohesive argument when you use facts. The iPhone 3GS and the Palm Pre both use a ARM Cortex A8 processor, however the Palm Pre is clocked at 500Mhz, whereas the iPhone 3GS is clocked at 600Mhz.

In other words, the Palm Pre has a SLOWER CPU, not faster.

This is Macrumors, logic will get you nowhere.

 

[carlgo]

Jobs, control freak as ever.

I worked for a guy like that for too long. A screaming power freak who, like Jobs, created a very successful business built on quality.

He felt he was more evolved than his employees, a key factor in the very insulting way he dealt with them.

Some took their assaults humbly in order to get the good pay and benefits. Others got out.

Of course a truly evolved boss would use less narcissistic ways of getting their point across and would be even more successful in the long run.

It took a year to come down from that experience!

 

[gilkisson]

PALM PRE sucks

Come out of your shell, tell us how you really feel...

And now it's banned from iTunes.

Seriously? I thought Palm just re-hacked that to get back into sync...

 

[agbot]

non-compete clauses are now wrong and illegal??
maybe i need to brush up on my contract drafting skills, but i have been under the impression throughout my career that a properly defined, reasonable agreement to protect intellectual property is somewhat normal, if not essential. while an outright prohibition in space and time may very well be unenforceable, an argument could be made that this was just a friendly reminder that liability may stick should a non-compete agreement be broken or a breach of contract induced. consequently, everybody should be weary of hiring anybody's ex-employees. of course its easy to blame jobs as a 'control freak' (although not personally knowing the man i feel it is simply idiotic to make such claims) this seems to me to be nothing more than a PREemptive (no pun intended) legal manouver to buttress a NCC
then again, you americans have some pretty 'interesting' anti-trust laws, so im not entirely sure where fiduciariy obligations end and anti-trust violations begin... (i would hazard a guess that most people are as confused as i am)

Non complete clauses are (for the most part) not enforceable in the State of California. Maybe this prompted Jobs to go knocking door to door to try to roll his own.

 

[panamajack]

non-compete clauses are now wrong and illegal?

They are in the State of California, home of both Palm and Apple. That's WHY Jobs would go out and request a gentlemen's agreement

 

[swingerofbirch]

Why would Palm want to have agreed? Do they have anyone Apple wants? What would they have gotten out of that deal? Apple's only choice is probably to just pay their people more, be nicer to them, etc.

 

[PeterQVenkman]

non-compete clauses are now wrong and illegal??

A non-compete clause is between one employer and their employee, and is fairly standard (I've got one).

Non-compete between companies (especially big companies) can lead to serious issues in the market, hence why it is usually illegal to do so.

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

I love hearing all this Palm Pre failed etc etc.

Comparing the wireless carrier and time that the Pre has been out, it is doing quite well. Plus its not the Pre that Palm is betting on, its WebOS. WebOS is very very good and has a lot of potential.

Everyone saying Palm is a sore loser and no competition. Why is Steve so worried than?

 

[kirky29]

**Personally** Palm = A Joke

 

[twoodcc]

i'm really starting to not like palm at all

 

[jdechko]

Someday, a device will come along which really will be the "iPhone killer". It's inevitable. Who is more likely to make that device - Palm, Apple themselves, or someone else? So far, the only one who can out-Apple Apple is Apple. The only employee Palm could hire who could change that is Jobs himself. Not too likely...

Exactly. Apple would prefer that the new iPhone be the iPhone killer. It's why every September, Apple holds an event to launch the new stuff. If they're going to lose sales, it might as well be from another product that they sell.

It's also why there are 4 different iPods, and they're all spaced so closely together in pricing. The only gap in the lineup that I see is the low end (cheaper than the shuffle).

 

[thetexan]

Palm is decent company trying to revolutionize the company by changing business model... (selling only OS and crappy phone to Apple like...)

I have nothing against pre... but I just hate how Palm boast multi-task and describe it as superior WebOS over OSX of iPhone when they, still, have better CPU than iPhone 3GS.

They just have better processor. That's all. It's not OS....

Do you mind repeating in English, please?

 

[RebootD]

The comments on here are very childish bashing Palm for being a 'sore loser' etc.

People who are brilliant in their selected fields always want to be working on the next great thing. So you work at Apple and you help create and launch the biggest phone in a decade so now it will be in a constant 'revision' mode.

People like R. in the article leave to start the process of building 'the next great thing' elsewhere because that is what they love to do. This happens all the time.

 

[JGowan]

It's all about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

I have to disagree with it being all about money. It's not. Steve Jobs is not kind of rich, sort of rich -- he's stinking, filthy rich. He has been since 1984 when he was worth $100M. Now he's worth probably 30X that, a Billionaire several times over. Now Rubenstein & the top guy of Palm... they're not rich like that, but they could vacation every day for the rest of their lives in a very wealthy manner.

It's not about money for these guys. Certainly not Jobs. I think whatever passion he had about building the best tech early on his career was personified in a major way when he was kicked out and denied the very thing he built up from nothing in a garage with his buddy. And I know there'll be several who'll chime in about it being Woz who built the computer in the first place. But I defy anyone to not agree that if it would've been just Woz in the beginning, Apple would've never been a reality. Not even a footnote. Woz wanted to build computers and he would've joined IBM and would've helped them build their computers. It was always Jobs' vision.

Personally, I think agreeing not to poach is just fine. If employees go to the other company on their own, that's fine.

 

[Peace]

I thought most of the highly talented people at companies had contracts that said they couldn't go to work for a competitor for X number of years after leaving the company. Is this sort of contract now illegal? And if so. why?. All it does is keep a person from taking IP from one company to another.

Palm is trying to blow smoke over the fact that they illegally tried to make the Pre look like an iPod to iTunes.

 

[rjohnstone]

I love hearing all this Palm Pre failed etc etc.

Comparing the wireless carrier and time that the Pre has been out, it is doing quite well. Plus its not the Pre that Palm is betting on, its WebOS. WebOS is very very good and has a lot of potential.

Everyone saying Palm is a sore loser and no competition. Why is Steve so worried than?

I agree... Sprint was a stepping stone Palm needed to get the Pre into the market. Hence the reason Palm only gave the a 6 month exclusive on the phone.

Once the Pre hits Verizon it will be a different story. IIRC, it should be right around Christmas time.

WebOs has a ton of potential and it should make Steve nervous.

 

[kdarling]

People like R. in the article leave to start the process of building 'the next great thing' elsewhere because that is what they love to do. This happens all the time.

Exactly. Like others here, I'm sure, I also have been lured away to work on the next big thing. Sometimes just being able to see your ideas appreciated and used, is all it takes. (Any extra money doesn't hurt, of course.)

Non-competes, even where they're allowed, are limited to guarding intellectual property and plans and customer info, not to prevent you from working in your field.

As for the naive comments about Palm, do not forget that Jobs is no stranger to direct poaching to build up a new product or company.

Jobs lured PARC engineers to come develop the Mac, and he stole Apple engineers to come to NeXT (Apple sued him over that). Lately Apple approached and got IBM's chief cpu engineer, and a bunch of Motorola mobile executives. Both companies sued Apple.

Companies would be much smarter if they paid and appreciated their people, instead of trying to hold onto them for no good reason except fear of someone else actually using their talents to build better products.

 

[miketcool]

Actually, I find this all very amusing. I wonder what other companies will step up to the microphone and explain the underhanded deals they made / thought about with Apple.

What, are you guys blaming Palm because Jobs approached them? Like saying to the girl who got raped, "sorry, you attracted it".

I think Palm has some justifications in their vendor ID usage to break through on iTunes. I am not saying what they are doing is legal, but I find it a fascinating statement to be making. I recall the 90s being full of lawsuits about software companies forcing the use of their software and weeding out competition. Didn't those cases lead to $billions in damages awarded?

 

[DMann]

Since when has Palm been rebuilt? They are on life support.

Life support? No, thats too much. How about in the Critical Intensive Care Unit?

They just came out of the coma they were in.

WebOs will save neither Palm, nor the Pre, both of which they bet the entire farm on. Perhaps WebOS will be picked up by Google, or perhaps even Symbian. Overall, Palm's business practices tactics leave much to be desired.

Palm, Inc: lub-dub........lub-..dub.....lub-.....dub...​

 

[notjustjay]

Mr. Jobs, I'm sure you could invent that Men in Black mind eraser thing and use it on anyone who wants to leave Apple.

It's called a Non Disclosure Agreement. I'm pretty sure if Palm was caught stealing Apple secrets from previous Apple employees, the law would have something to say about that.

 

[ericinboston]

Jobs, control freak as ever.

yup.

Jobs' proposal is way out of line...cry baby-ish. If you can't retain your employees, that's your problem...pay them better, give them more vacation, give more stock options, whatever you need to do. Retaining "top talent" in a company should be your main focus...especially for VPs and Execs. Most people will never stay at the same company forever...get with the program, Jobs.

Execs and VPs don't typically leave a company just because someone else offered to double their salary or total compensation package. It's usually, honestly, more about any/all of the below:

• more challenging position
• more exciting company
• heading up a new division
• offered to be more creative and invent something new without supervision
• more freedom to act
• higher compensation/salary
• more belief in the company's values and/or direction
• smaller company with chance to become CEO or very significant stakeholder

 

[a.gomez]

A non-compete is not illegal - but needs to be signed by you... it is not a deal by 2 CEO in a room.

not sure about all the PALM hate, they did the right thing here

like he said
"regardless of the individual’s desires, is not only wrong, it is likely illegal,”

it should be up to the worker not his or jobs