Ex-blade server guru is currently fighting its former employers in court

Nov 12, 2008 10:14 GMT  ·  By

The brief bio of Mark Papermaster, posted among those of Apple's senior executives, disappeared this week, CNet is reporting. Apple, however, hasn't pulled the official press release announcing his new position within the “devices” division of the company.

While the document is no longer present on Apple's “Executive Profiles” page, Google's caching capabilities were able to provide the SVP's entire short bio. Some excerpts are available below.

Mark Papermaster

Senior Vice President, Devices Hardware Engineering

Apple

Mark Papermaster is Apple's senior vice president of Devices Hardware Engineering. He leads the iPod and iPhone engineering teams, and reports directly to Apple's CEO.

Papermaster has 25 years of product and technology experience, and was previously a vice president at IBM responsible for blade development including x86, POWER, storage blades, chassis, network electronics and associated ecosystem. He started his career in application-specific IC development circuit design at IBM’s Microelectronics Division, and had technical and management assignments in quality, CAD tool applications, and microprocessors... He is active with the University of Texas where he is a member of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Advisory Council.

Apple Executive Profiles includes the likes of Steve Jobs (CEO), Timothy D. Cook (COO), Scott Forstall (SVP iPhone software), and Jonathan Ive (SVP Industrial Design), among others. Mark Papermaster had earned his place among Apple's high-ups, soon after the company officially announced he was replacing Tony Fadell, Apple’s senior vice president of the iPod Division.

However, not too long after Apple posted the announcement, IBM dragged its server EXpert to court. Reportedly, because of an injunction preventing him from starting work at Apple, IBM will negotiate a bond with Papermaster that will allow monetary compensation to be sought by either party, if the injunction is found to be unjust.