Opinion: Working for the man

IBM has sooled the lawyers on their departing executive claiming he will be taking all sorts of secret knowledge across to one of their fiercest competitors.

Everyone else, inlcuding Apple and the hapless exec, said "Huh?". And everyone else does seem to have a valid point.

The dude in question worked on blade servers at IBM. And last time we looked Apple wasn't making any blade servers.

So, does IBM know something we don't? Is there a secret Apple plan to conquer the world with iBlades?

Or maybe it's the other way around. Perhaps there's a secret IBM plan to release a line of MP3 players which slot into a blade server chassis?

Either way, surely there has to be a limit to the nonsense of pretending that a company owns you in return for a salary.

We're guessing that in the old days when nobody ever seemed to leave IBM this wasn't a problem. But surely in this day and age of instant legal action, a simple non-disclosure contract would suffice.

Let the dude resign and join some other company, and only call the lawyers if your precious secrets really have been revealed.

When Apple announces the imminent release of an iBlade for example. Until then, please spare us from your corporate paranoia.

Besides, it's not like it's so tricky to build a blade server anyway.

In case IBM didn't notice there are a few other companies already doing exactly that.

And if that's not the topic which has IBM panicked, may we humbly suggest they don't bother with an onslaught on the iPod market?

The last thing the world needs is another MP3 player right now, even if it comes with a phone and a camera included.

And we certainly don't need one that slots into a blade server chassis.

Or do we? Maybe that's the secret after all - we've been throwing higher and higher wages at techies and we still can't keep them in the data centres.

Perhaps if there were a few MP3-playing blades in the racks we could lure them back to work.

Meanwhile, as per usual, the lawyers will get rich while the exec sits at home, banned from working for Apple and not welcome back at work for IBM.

Somebody stop this lunacy, please.