14 DAY TRIAL // Days after it was revealed that IBM was holding a grudge against its former blade server guru, Apple issued an official announcement saying that Mark Papermaster was joining the company as Senior Vice President of Devices Hardware Engineering. Soon after these events had unfolded, a federal judge ordered the former IBM executive to cease work for the Cupertino, California company.
U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth Karas ruled that Mark Papermaster must "immediately cease his employment with Apple Inc. until further Order of this Court." Court documents didn't include information as to what Karas' reasons were to rule this way. The Judge only said that he would issue an opinion at a later date, a Computerworld piece reveals.
On Tuesday last week, Apple was making it official that ex-IBM chip design expert, Mark Papermaster, had joined the company as Senior Vice President of Devices Hardware Engineering. Worth noting is that Papermaster immediately started work as Apple posted the announcement. IBM had already filed a complaint against Papermaster noting that the "blade server guru" possessed highly-confidential IBM trade secrets and know-how, spelling disaster for IBM, should he share this kind of information with Apple. In a response filed with Karas on Thursday, just one day before the judge had ruled against him, Papermaster countered IBM's claims, the same report reveals.
"Apple hired Mr. Papermaster not because of any specific knowledge or experience he gained at IBM, but for his general skill as an engineer and his strong management skills," the memorandum submitted to Karas read. "Nothing about his new job will implicate any trade secrets from IBM... Apple and IBM are not even competitors," Papermaster's objection to the proposed injunction also said. He also argued that Apple was focused on consumers, while IBM targeted businesses, particularly large companies.
But probably most intriguing is that "after Mr. Papermaster informed IBM that he had accepted a job at Apple, IBM allowed him to continue working at IBM for two entire weeks, with unfettered access to all of his files and to IBM's entire computer network,” Papermaster's filing said. The same document noted that this attitude was “hardly what one would expect when an executive is leaving for a competitor."