Every time that I go into a meeting with an analog vendor it is inevitable that I will be told things about their product direction, their roadmap – things that they will not talk about with most other journalists. They know, historically, that I do not share their confidential information with their competitors or anybody else – nor do I write about it until the time has come.
Why then, do employers not share the same trust with employees when they decide to move on, to improve their career, to gain new experiences and skills?
The State of California is fortunate that it has a Supreme Court that believes
non-compete agreements are, basically, unenforceable and unnecessary – that they are against the whole spirit of allowing someone to chose their own path. I would go further and say that non-compete agreements are slavery.
Not all jurisdictions share California opinion and many still enforce such agreements. One such occasion
arose in 2005 when Google wanted to hire speech recognition expert, Kel-Fu Lee, from Microsoft. The case went to court in Washington State and the courts there disallowed its transfer to California courts. In the end, as most all of these things end, the matter was settled out of court. Once the employee has moved States there is little that can be done by the previous employer.
A similar situation has now raised its ugly head in the Manhattan courts. A highly-placed IBM executive, Mark Papermaster, has quit in favor of a job with Apple. IBM is
suing the 26-year veteran to stop that move.
Papermaster ran the x86 blade development unit and is one of the company’s PowerPC experts. The non-compete that he signed is supposed to stop him from working for a “competitor” for one year after leaving IBM.
I find it extremely insulting to the man that IBM assumes that Papermaster will simply tell Jobs – no doubt over a latte – all of IBM’s dark secrets. Sharing confidential information is surely not one of the qualifications required in a job offer?
IBM filed the injunction against Papermaster on October 22, 2008, the day after he tendered his resignation. He was still in his office, still working. The company offered him what has been described as a substantial increase in his remuneration and benefits or, if he was intent on leaving, that they would pay him a year’s compensation if he waited that year before joining Apple.
You have to wonder, if he was truly that important to IBM, why they didn’t compensate him better, earlier…
IBM’s fixation on this may be tied to Apple’s acquisition of the boutique, fabless, microprocessor PA Semiconductor design company back in April 2008. They
bought the company for $278 million in cash and took on about 150 new employees. At one time it was reported that IBM were considering going with the PowerPC 64-bit derivative that PA had been working on – consuming less than 7 W while running at 2 GHz – but Apple’s decision to go with Intel microprocessors squashed any further talk between IBM and PA, or between Apple and PA – until the unexpected purchase.
All in all it seems that Jobs has a notion of becoming independent of anybody else for the microprocessors he needs for future portable devices. I cannot believe I am saying this, Jobs-phobic that I am, but good luck to you, Mr. Jobs, in this quest; it should have happened a long time ago. Bring Mark Papermaster to Cupertino and ignore the Manhattan courts. They cannot even subpoena him or you in California. Use Papermaster’s skills, not his knowledge of any dirty laundry in IBM; show some class, just for once.
