Dead Steve Jobs' patent war threat to Palm over 'no-hire pact' Steve Jobs threatened the CEO of Palm with a patent bash-up if he didn't stop nicking Apple employees, a court filing in an antitrust lawsuit has revealed. Apple and other tech defendants, including Google and Intel, are the subject of a civil suit brought by five tech workers alleging that the firms conspired to eliminate …
True, which is probably why Palm were so keen to hire people from Apple.
While they're not allowed to take sensitive documentation with them, they can take what is in their heads. Some companies have a policy of not putting hired employees on competing projects to their former employers, to avoid litigation.
Anyway, while employers don't own employees there is a big difference between employees leaving and getting a job somewhere else and employers head-hunting people at a rival to gain an advantage.
Motorola's PowerPC processor struggled after Intel poached so many crucial people from Motorola.
"there is a big difference between employees leaving and getting a job somewhere else and employers head-hunting people at a rival to gain an advantage"
I don't agree - a company will go to a head-hunting firm and say what skills they require. That firm will do whatever it takes to get the staff in for interview and placed so that they can get their 40% or so blood money after the employee has been retained for 6 months.
I know this is in the US, but in Europe it is forbidden to hinder the transfer of staff thanks to restrictive practices initiated by European football (read Soccer) clubs : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosman_ruling I'm sure in the land of the free there is similar legislation.
Europe may forbid hindering the transference of staff, but in Switzerland there is a no-compete clause written into the standard contract law for workers, which I think is for a year. My understanding is that this means not going to a direct competitor within a year, nor starting your own company and poaching customers from your old employer within a year.
"Simple, if someone offered to double your salary you might leave?"
And if you were worth that much to Apple they would match the offer wouldn't they? Otherwise if your skills are worth twice as much to another company you'd have to have rocks in your head to stick with your current employer - its called the free market.
The attempted arrangement was about saving Apple money having to pay full market wages, not about principles...
> @Jobs: "My advice is to take a look at our patent portfolio before you make a final decision here."
He doesn't leave a lot of wiggle-room for the apologists. Straight-up patent warrior there - looks like it was probably deep in the DNA. Guess he had more in common with Gates and Balmer than I would have thought.
"So if you leave Apple you're not allowed to work for another IT company then, or am I missing something."
Picture this:
Company A (whom you work for) makes an agreement to not poach employees from Company B.
You apply for a job with company B.
Your CV lands on a HR 'droid's desk at company A.
They spot you are currently employed by Company B and your CV instantly drops from the list of likely candidates.
Get it?
Poaching is when you work for company A and someone from company B (might even be an old collegue who used to work for company A) offers you a job.
Going to company B or replying to one of their adverts in the job section does not count as poaching.
Though there are often legal requirements that companies have to advertise jobs and even interview candidates before filling a position. Annoying when you are one of these poor candidates who are brought in just to make up their interview numbers when the job is already going to their friend.
>Shome mishtake shurely?
>>Wow, Sean Connery reads the Reg!
It's a reference to a magazine called Private Eye, that engages in investigative journalism and a level of piss-taking and cynicism that makes El Reg look tame, and was started long before liquid lunches (and thus afternoon slurring by the editor, on his way to being 'tired and emotional') went out of fashion.
Or it might be a pastiche of Private Eye. Pastiche: n. What Sean Connery eats in Cornwall.
-Bogbrush
"Shome mishtake shurely" was usually attributed to "W. Deedes, Ed". Bill Deedes may or may not have liked liquid lunches - the fact that he was the recipient of the "Dear Bill" letters allegedly sent by Dennis Thatcher suggests that he did. But I think he actually shpoke that way when shtone-cold shober.
Simply put. You work for Apple and earn $40,000 per year. Palm comes along and says "hey, we have a job that we want you for, we'll pay you $60,000 per year!". Apple then have to either let their talent go (and they are talented, they were head hunted) or match (or beat) $60,000.
To get around this, Apple, Google etc. enter a pact "we won't poach your staff, don't poach ours" so Google won't go to an Apple employee and offer them $60,000 a year which means the employee is out of pocket to the tune of $20,000, the wages are kept artificially low "yeah, the people doing your job earn $40k so that's what we're offering you"..
All in all, quite sleazy.
> @David Webb: 'To get around this, Apple, Google etc. enter a pact "we won't poach your staff, don't poach ours" so Google won't go to an Apple employee and offer them $60,000 a year which means the employee is out of pocket to the tune of $20,000, the wages are kept artificially low "yeah, the people doing your job earn $40k so that's what we're offering you"..'
And, since there's no way to enforce the "pact", Jobs threatens to go patent-troll on the other company as the form of enforcement. Who wins? Employers, with artificially low wages. Who loses? Wage earners for these companies (reduced salaries, fewer job options); consumers (patent wars send the cost of devices up). And, companies like Apple lose, as they eat away at their own accumulated Goodwill, like a snake eating its own tail.
So, Palm were paying better then? Well, if you want the best staff, you need to go hunting and pay for them, or pay your own a decent wage so they don't vote with their feet. Unless you are rigging the market in an illegal way, of course.
Or bringing in "super-talented" on visas, that mysteriously seem to be cheaper as well, so they are supposedly like Alan Turing but oddly also willing to work for a burger-flipper's wage. Sure that will really help demand in the local economy...
Hey, call me old fashioned .....
.................as a weapon of offence rather than defence. A weapon to be used even when there does not appear to have been any legitimate grounds to deploy it. He was clearly prepared to use it in order to extort "cooperation" from other companies even when there was no genuine IP issue involved. Something to think about in the context of Apple's judicial carpet bombing of their main rival in the industry over the past two years perhaps?
There wasn't "legitimate grounds to deploy it"?!!!
Fox, the palm people weren't doing what Jobs told them to do, they were even daft enough to pretend to compete with Apple.
If that isn't legitimate I don't know what is.
I mean, Steve Jobs even bothered to speak with Palm's CEO, himself, as is people from other companies deserved to be told the time of day by Him.
It is clear that the use of litigation is something Apple only uses after being provoked the most.
This post has been deleted by its author
>Jobs accused two former Apple workers, Jon Rubenstein and Fred Anderson
If Job actually had any evidence he would of been able to get Jon and Fred (and the three others) on breech of contract as all contracts I've signed have had an anti-poaching clause. But then if Apple's contracts didn't contain an anti-poaching clause or it had lapsed, Jobs didn't have a leg to stand on...
In either case if I was one of the people accused by Job's, I'd also be filing a defamation of character charge against Job's (estate) and let his lawyers argue whether he was acting on the behalf of Apple or in a private capacity.
It's nice to finially see the reality of who Jobs is/was regarding his character and morals. I just have to refer to the early example of how Jobs treated his "Friend" Steve Wozniak when Woz helped Jobs on the Atari Breakout game. Jobs hide the fact that there was a 5,000 bonus payout on that project. All due to the technical expertise of Woz.
Jobs was a con-artist/car salesman then and in his later years. No respect for the man at all. He was the face man for Apple, but not the "Innovator" the general public like to believe. Just cult followers refusing to see the man for who He was. He took a $1.00 salary for the tax benefits, not because He was a swell guy. Of course if I could do that, I would as well, since its current tax law. IMO, Newts suggestion to offer an option of 15% flat tax or current tax system was a realistic approach to addressing the 1,000's of tax policies.
Best wishes for all,
Er, the Apple users use the products, and they don't form a relationship with Jobs. Hell, do you not watch films made by less than nice directors? Listen to music by less than moral performers?
You can't even begin to sort the products you use on a daily basis by the character of their late CEO.
And Woz... good on him, he gave a load of his cash away. But he's probably had more freedom to pursue what interests him because he worked with Jobs... what's a few thousand compared to the millions he made with Apple?
I don't know if you noticed, but the Steve Jobs Saint icon was dropped a long time ago.
I don't think the OP was talking about the product as much as Job's character. And note that at the time of hiding the $5k bonus from Woz, neither of them had any money, or any idea they were going to become rich. That was plain unpleasant behaviour - hiding profits from your PARTNER for your own benefit.
I wasn't disputing that Jobs wasn't all sweetness and light to all he met... it was just the OP's phrase "Just cult followers refusing to see the man for who He was. " isn't a very nice comment either, since it is disrespectful to normal people who use Apple gear because it can easy to use for many tasks, or it's what their sector has always used.
What's the Mayan angle ?
Well the Mayans practiced Human Sacrifice, albeit famously less than their neighbours to the North the Aztecs. Enter the Conquistadores who hunted gold and would have enslaved to get it. What did not happen is the incorporation of Human Sacrifice into European Culture.
The Silicon Valley Conquistadores offered slavery or iPhones to Asia and the deal was sealed. This is the Moral Hazard of celebrating CEO's who are clever, but !(educated people|moral people).
I've never been a great fan of Steve Jobs - mostly because of his personal behaviour in dealings with other people. Bascially the guy comes across as a user. I.e. he'd use you up for his own ends without a qualm. But I suppose that's not too different from many people at the top of business.
As the saying goes: Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts abslutely.
Apparently after Apple were sued for $100m in 2006 by Creative, Jobs' attitude was patent everything, especially as the iPhone was being released. Reads to me as though Apple got a bloody nose and Jobs' attitude was not to get caught out like that again.
Interesting article here on his "Defensive tool".
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/10/08/the-day-apples-steve-jobs-got-serious-about-patents/
...and an extract here:
It was 2006, and Apple was preparing to unveil the first iPhone. Life inside company headquarters, former executives said, had become a frenzy of programming sessions and meetings between engineers and executives. And, increasingly, patent lawyers.
Just months earlier, Apple reluctantly agreed to pay $100 million to Creative Technology...
Privately, Mr. Jobs gathered his senior managers. While Apple had long been adept at filing patents, when it came to the new iPhone, "we're going to patent it all," he declared, according to a former executive who, like other former employees, requested anonymity because of confidentiality agreements.
"His attitude was that if someone at Apple can dream it up, then we should apply for a patent, because even if we never build it, it's a defensive tool," said Nancy R. Heinen, Apple's general counsel until 2006.
Soon, Apple's engineers were asked to participate in monthly "invention disclosure sessions." One day, a group of software engineers met with three patent lawyers, according to a former Apple patent lawyer who was at the meeting.
The first engineer discussed a piece of software that studied users' preferences as they browsed the Web.
"That's a patent," a lawyer said, scribbling notes.
Another engineer described a slight modification to a popular application.
"That's a patent," the lawyer said.
Another engineer mentioned that his team had streamlined some software.
"That's another one," the lawyer said.
"Even if we knew it wouldn't get approved, we would file the application anyway," the former Apple lawyer said in an interview. "If nothing else, it prevents another company from trying to patent the idea."
The disclosure session had yielded more than a dozen potential patents when an engineer, an Apple veteran, spoke up. "I would like to decline to participate," he said, according to the lawyer who was at the meeting. The engineer explained that he didn't believe companies should be allowed to own basic software concepts.
Looks like there was only one kind of tool
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