Apple, Palm rivalry redux: Poaching examined

Former Palm CEO Ed Colligan reportedly rebuffed Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who wanted to prevent Palm from hiring his employees.

According to a Bloomberg report , Colligan rejected a proposal from Jobs to refrain from poaching each other's employees. The August 2007 missive between Jobs and Colligan came shortly after Palm hired former Apple exec Jon Rubinstein.

Also see: Palm hopes high with Rubinstein at the helm

There are a few threads to ponder here.

First, the communication is notable given the U.S. Justice Department is looking into possible hiring collusion among tech companies.

But more importantly, Apple saw the potential threat from Palm early. For Jobs to worry about Rubinstein poaching employees so quickly is notable. For starters, Palm was the much weaker company so how many employees could Rubinstein realistically poach? As far as resources go, there's no doubt that Apple is infinitely stronger.

Indeed, Colligan noted in his note to Jobs that Apple poached 2 percent of Palm's workforce when it was developing the iPhone.  Bloomberg couldn't find the exact details of what Jobs proposed to Colligan.

The two companies are increasingly competitive. To wit:

• Palm is courting developers for its app marketplace
• Palm recently hired Apple veteran Jeff Zwerner to head brand design
• And there are skirmishes over the the iTunes sync for Pre.