Apple’s “1984″ ad has been widely regarded as one of the most memorable and successful American television commercials ever, as it was an important symbol of fighting conformity (considered to be IBM at the time). Of course much has changed today, and Apple has seemingly become what they had portrayed as Big Brother in their own ad, or at least Motorola thinks so.

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.

Apple’s new employee from IBM, Mark Papermaster, has been ordered by a Judge to halt work at Apple until the lawsuit IBM has filed against him gets figured out. Papermaster is taking over for Tony Fadell as a top position in the iPod/iPhone division. IBM feels that Papermaster is breaking part of his contract with more »

According to a study done by Duke University and the University of Waterloo, it can. The study, which is to be published in April, found that exposure to well-known brands, even for a second, can cause us to behave in ways similar to the traits of the companies. 341 students took part in the experiment more »