Mobile Computing News

Photo: Apple

Though nigh on all of us have moved on, it seems Apple simply won’t let antennagate go. Reports emerged over the weekend that the company had fired Mark Papermaster, Apple’s senior executive overseeing engineering of the iPhone and iPad.

Shocking,

Mark Papermaster spent 25 years at IBM, having expertise on the IBM Power chip side of the business. This experience made him attractive to Apple but now a mere two years later he has been let go.

Bob Mansfield, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Computer Engineering, will shoulder Papermaster’s responsibility. Considering Mansfield already manages key mobile technology divisions in Apple, namely the A4 processor chip and the touchscreen, this should make for a rather seamless transition.

Antennagate to blame?

Most tech blogs latched onto the antennagate PR disaster as the reason for the iPhone exec’s departure, but though that’s the case, it is unclear if he’s only been let go in the wake of antennagate. Astute commentators noted that Papermaster wasn’t in the iPhone 4 launch video, which could imply Apple had ousted him prior to the iPhone launch, expectant of the antennagate issues.

Regardless, hearing of someone getting ousted from a company is never nice, but that’s precisely what has happened here. And what makes things worse is it seems like Papermaster is the sacrificial lamb in the antennagate fiasco.

Hey HP, do it! Hire this guy!

Photo: Apple

It stands to reason that Mark Papermaster will not have a hard time getting a new job. More importantly, because he was terminated, it is likely there is no enforceable restraint of trade agreement in place (unless Apple gave him a pricey golden handshake), meaning Papermaster can get right back into the mobile phones hardware business at another company.

The employment teams at RIM, HTC, Nokia, Motorola and HP (post-Palm acquisition) should have their spidey senses tingling. Hire Mark Papermaster right away – you may very well learn invaluable information you may not have otherwise come across.

In other news, Apple continues to print money, selling iPhones, iPads, Macs and iPods hand over fist.