What do you do if you’re Apple, with a huge new data center gearing up down in North Carolina and oodles of storage space ready for customers? Find someone to manage it all, which Cupertino has done by poaching a Microsoft general manager.
MacRumors is reporting that Apple has hired former Microsoft general manager Kevin Timmons, who spent less than two years with the company after a decade with GeoCities/Yahoo. According to GreenM3 and Data Center Knowledge, Timmons headed up Microsoft’s data center group and may have even bigger shoes to fill at Apple.
“News that a bunch of us have been discussing is Apple hiring Kevin Timmons (GM of Microsoft's data center services group),” the report reads. “Don’t expect any press releases from Apple or Microsoft on this one. The position Kevin is going to fill is not known and is not the position vacated by the departed Olivier Sanche. Olivier's position has been filled by another data center operations executive.”
The aforementioned Sanche was the previous head of Apple’s data center, who died of a heart attack last November. With Sanche’s former position already filled, it seems that Cupertino may have something else up their sleeve for new hire Timmons.
In fact, All Things Digital is reporting that Timmons may be the man tasked with the responsibility of launching Apple’s much-rumored cloud services, including the updated MobileMe service which CEO Steve Jobs himself promised would get better this year.
“Timmons left Microsoft this week and the company has confirmed his departure, though it declined to say why he left or where he was headed. But sources in position to know confirm hes hired on with Apple,” the report said. “Details on Timmons's responsibilities there are slim, though I'm told his role may extend beyond his datacenter expertise. Which is interesting to hear in light of recent chatter about Apple's rumored cloud initiatives.”
In recent months, rumors of Apple’s cloud initiative have included a “digital locker” for iTunes music, videos and photos, a free MobileMe service and most recently, a video subscription service that would rival even Netflix.
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(Image courtesy of MacRumors)
