Apple spent five months trying to find the most suitable man for its iPod business

Nov 14, 2008 09:04 GMT  ·  By

With Apple's official announcement of replacing Tony Fadell with Mark Papermaster still online, documents showing that IBM's former exec might not be the best candidate for senior vice president of Devices Hardware Engineering at Apple are starting to surface.

InformationWeek points out quick product cycles, consumer focus, and informal culture as being the main possible reasons for Papermaster's encountering difficulties in the exercising of his new role within the company.

Of course, Mark Papermaster needs to settle his differences with IBM first, in order to begin work as SVP of Apple's Devices division, a position that requires "someone who had a strong background in technology and engineering in general, who also had strong managerial skills and would fit within Apple's culture," says Apple Human Resources VP, Danielle Lambert, in a court filing related to the lawsuit.

Thus, even though Apple believes Papermaster has sufficient technical knowledge and managerial abilities to fulfill the role, the company is still worried that he might not fit in. IBM is perceived as an uptight environment, whereas Apple has a “rock-star CEO,” which pretty much says it all, according to the source.

Lambert went on to write an e-mail to Bob Mansfield, Apple's senior VP for Mac Hardware Engineering and Papermaster's ex-colleague at IBM, saying: "You mentioned Mark being spot on in systems and semiconductor understanding, but may be off in other ways." Admittedly, Mansfield replied saying that he was "worried" about how Papermaster would handle "the differences in the pace of development" between the two companies, but wasn't too concerned either, court records showed.

The same documents also revealed that Apple spent five months trying to find a candidate with a background in consumer electronics. Apple's lack of success in this area is seen as not too good for the iPod business.