For at least a few minutes in the daily spin cycle, the news about Mark Papermaster and Tony Fadell topped the interest in the fate of those two other guys attracting lots of attention today.
Since Apple's preferred mode of communicating with the rest of humanity is via the issuance of press releases, we're only left to speculate about the cosmic import of what is, on the surface, a big event in the company's recent history. The company confirmed that Mark Papermaster, who had been a vice president at IBM, who will join Apple as senior vice president of devices, responsible for the company's iPod and iPhone hardware-engineering teams.
IBM now says it plans to sue to prevent Papermaster's defection. At first blush, it reminded me of the dustup over Kai-Fu Lee's move from Microsoft to Google a couple of years ago. Lee, a star computer scientist who built up Microsoft's research operations in China, was hired by Google to do something similar for his new employer. Microsoft and delayed his departure. Ultimately, a settlement was struck, but Microsoft made the point it wanted to prevent further poaching.
But the Lee analogy doesn't really work. If he gets to punch in at Apple, Papermaster would be managing iPod and iPhone development. At IBM, he was involved with blade server development and the Power chip. (Unless I missed something and Big Blue was secretly working on smartphones and MP3 players, there's not much to connect the two examples.)
Would Papermaster's arrival signal a more concerted push by Apple into the enterprise business? Apple doing blade servers? Nah. Eliot Van Buskirk at Wired News offers a more credible scenario, suggesting that the move may be the prelude to a "major shift" in Apple's music strategy:
Times have changed since 2001--or even 2006, when Fadell took charge of the iPod division. Apple has settled on general iPod designs (classic or touchscreen), flash memory has stabilized as the portable music format of choice and, perhaps most importantly, connected devices such as the iPhone are accessing music less on their own hard drives and more on Web-based music services.
As my colleague Tom Krazit notes, the Papermaster hire probably has more to do with Apple incorporating more computing smarts into its devices. (Check out the accompanying video.)
Meanwhile, over at ZDNet, Larry Dignan points out that the shuffle clouds the succession picture at Apple:
Jobs isn't going anywhere at the moment, but recent press conferences may indicate that he's at least pondering a succession plan. Jobs has been yielding the spotlight to other top execs like Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook. While the Jobs successor is a topic of conversation among techies, it's unclear whether anything is imminent (it probably isn't). Nevertheless, Faddell was noted as a possible successor.
More likely, this is going to be about the money. If IBM can make Jobs sweat, that's going to be at least some small consolation for losing a coveted executive.
What's up Jobs' sleeve this time around?
The guessing game is almost over. On Tuesday, Apple will hold a press conference here in San Francisco to announce--well, Apple's invite just says "Let's Rock." But unless 99.99 percent of the blogging and journalistic world is wrong--a phenomenon hardly unknown--Apple's going to announce a refresh of its iPod line.
In March, the audio chipmaker Wolfson told its shareholders that it had failed to win a contract to design next-generation media players for "a major Tier 1 customer" planning a third-quarter launch. Wonder who that might be? The September launch date is a no-brainer as that's when Apple and every other tech appliance maker tries to get as many new units as possible into the market ahead of the holiday shopping season.
Earlier Friday, I spoke with Tom Krazit about what Jobs likely will announce--as well as the chances for a redesign of the iPod Nano as well as rumors of a new version of ITunes.
The bar usually gets set higher when it comes to Apple product launches--and this time around it is no different. There likely will be even more than the predictably insane scrutiny because of the glitches which accompanied the introductions of the iPhone 3G and MobileMe.
Redesign for the Nano?
Still, I haven't heard anyone at Apple complaining about the company being unfairly singled out. This just goes with the role of being the media's favorite eye candy. Besides, I'd wager that over the years Apple has received millions of dollars in free publicity by cranking up the buzz machine in advance of official technology debuts.
Apple's flaks may have stewed, but each time the company got dinged by Fake Steve Jobs it was worth its weight in marketing gold. Seriously, outside of family members and confirmed sadomasochists, just how many people would be sufficiently interested to read a blog called Fake Mark Hurd or (gasp!) Fake Sam Palmisano?
But there's no need to overthink this. Right now, the test of a successful launch for Apple comes down to the basics: As Krazit points out, the product just has to work. Everything else is gravy.
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