Papermaster asking for his GI Joes back from IBM

We all know by now that Mark Papermaster (that is just a cool name, so I am going to use it as much as possible) was an Apple employee for all of 5 days before IBM sued him and asked for an injunction for him to just stop it. IBM threw a temper tantrum of Biblical proportions, saying he signed a “Non competition agreement.”

First off, most of us can agree that since Apple decided to switch to Intel processors, IBM and Apple are now competitors in the microprocessing space. IBM is a manufacturer of small chips that do various functions in small, medium and large PCBs or printed circuit boards. Apple also makes and uses these chips. From my skewed and prejudice position, this makes them competitors. I think Apple does a better job, but that is neither here nor there.

This makes it a great fit for Papermaster to join Apple. Mr. Papermaster was instrumental in the development of the PowerPC processor that Apple employed for so many years with great success. With Apple as the largest customer of the processors, it stands to reason that Papermaster had a prior relationship of some kind with Apple since some time in the 1990s. So, from where I am sitting, the very same thing that makes him such a great fit for Apple is the same thing that makes the whole thing kind of shady.

IBM sues Papermaster. Papermaster sues IBM. I can actually see and relate to both sides on this one. Papermaster did sign the agreement. The agreement is unfair. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. How do you feel about it?

Via [Computer World]