Apple Snatches IBM Exec for Cloud-Music

Seven years after Apple snapped up his idea for a portable music player that worked in conjunction with an online music store, iPod chief Tony Fadell (right) is leaving Apple "for personal reasons," according to CNET. His replacement by Mark Papermaster, a chip expert and soon-to-be-former IBM executive, could reflect a major shift Apple's approach to music.

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.

The switch from "father of the iPod" Tony Fadell to Mark Papermaster, whose expertise lies in chips and servers, could help Apple ride the wave from portable music to connected music. The era of "download and transfer" is giving way to a portable music scene that reflects the way many fans already listen to music at their computers: using a browser to access music blogs, radio stations, music networks and search engines.

IBM isn't letting go of Papermaster without a fight. The company is suing him for violating a non-compete clause that bars him from working at any competitor for the year following his exit from IBM, meaning that he may not be eligible to work at Apple until late 2009. IBM is specifically concerned about trade secrets regarding their designs for powering servers, among other things.

Want to run an advanced music service with robust streaming to iPhone descendants? You might want to have the guy behind some of the latest advances in server design on board.

At the other end of any sort of cloud-based music service are the microprocessor chips in laptops and portables. Apple paid $278 million for the chipmaker PA Semi earlier this year, and Papermaster (no photo available) is a chip design expert with 26 years of experience at IBM. In addition to helping Apple revamp its servers, Papermaster could help Apple design a server-to-microprocessor architecture to run a connected music service and other applications that access the cloud.

by Eliot Van Buskirk for Wired.com

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