Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) recently recruited former Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) chip designer Jim Mergard for their team.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Mergard was originally the vice president and chief engineer for Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD) before he was employed by Samsung.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has yet to comment on this report and there is no word on how much Apple is offering the former Samsung.
Last month, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) beat Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) in litigation over patent rights and won $1 billion in damages. It is interesting to see that Apple has wooed Samsung’s Mergard to join their team. It also indicates that the battle between the two companies is far from over.
What will Mergard bring to the table for Apple? Moor Insights & Strategy leader Patrick Moorhead, suggests that Mergard’s experience in computer technology and products with systems on a chip would enable him to pull together the resources for Apple’s computer processors.
There is probably more to the story than we know. Apple may be using their recent lawsuit win as a way to entice some of their competitor’s most valuable employees. If that is the case, we will probably hear of more Samsung executives leaving for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in the near future.
It’s still unknown whether Meger will leave his hometown of Austin(where he worked for Samsung) for Cupertino, or if he will stay. Apple has small presence of chip designers in Austin, so it is possible that he could stay in Texas while contributing to Apple.
Apple’s latest move seems to be a good one for the company, especially when you consider the fact that they’ve already used many components that were built by Samsung in their products. It would make more sense to woo their competitor’s employees into working for them and hire them into making custom chip designs for their company. Additionally, Apple has over $100 billion of cash to deploy.
