Apple Computer may have regained founder Steve Jobs, but it’s losing key development staff at a frightening rate. The latest to jump ship is Rick LeFaivre, vice president of its Advanced Technology Group. LeFaivre, one of the earliest Apple employees, who left for stints at Sun Microsystems Inc, Silicon Graphics Corp and Viacom Inc, only re-joined Apple the week before Jobs to head the Group. He leaves behind him a much reduced team of 60 researchers. According to the San Jose Mercury, there were 220 researchers at the company two years ago. Most serious of all, Apple has lost nearly all of its Apple Fellows, including Apple Finder architect Steve Capps, user interaction specialist Alan Kay, and AppleTalk creator Gurshuran Sidhu. LeFaivre must like a challenge – he leaves Apple for struggling Borland International Inc, where he becomes chief technology officer. Meanwhile, Apple is promising developers who attend its World Wide Developers Conference in San Jose starting May 13 a prelude to Rhapsody software bundle, including the OpenStep technology that is the basis for Apple’s next generation Rhapsody operating system, due mid-1998.
Content from our partners
