Report: Apple poaching Samsung staff for future projects

The mobile tech industry is a dog-eat-dog world, be it sales, [market] share, specs, or even staff. The last one in particular is of note today, as several Samsung Korea employees were interviewed and admitted to the fact that Apple has been poaching its staff for work on future projects in Cupertino.

Speaking with unnamed “officials” at Samsung, The Korea Times was able to find out a fair bit of information during the interview, the lead being that “some of our personnel have been hired by Apple. They now work at Apple’s headquarters in San Jose, Calif.”  One individual then highlighted the fact that Apple rewards talent with an aggressive benefits package and a very generous salary. Another official provided more details, adding that, “former Samsung workers are given greater independence to proceed with their tasks. Apple prefers to use Samsung’s chip experts because they are very diligent, mission-oriented and are prepared to acquire new knowledge” and then pointed out that the individuals seduced by the dark side don’t have any real language difficulties working at Apple.

The second official also touched upon the idea of Apple and the supposed electric car it’s working on, something that has been making almost daily headlines in the past week-or-so’s rumor mills. Apparently, Apple is quite intent on recruiting Samsung staff who have experience with batteries as well, a point bolstered with the fact that Samsung SDI supplies power cells to major automobile manufacturers including BMW.

Before anyone gets too bent out of shape however, take a breather and remember that these kinds of situations happen all the time. Just weeks ago Samsung was in the news for a certain Jony Ive-associated individual it hired. Then there was HTC who wanted to reach Galaxies far beyond its own. Heck, Google’s own Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt, was even on Apple’s board of directors for roughly 3 years. So, while this latest side-switching-scenario might be news in-and-of-itself, it’s really just business as usual. At the very least it allows for keen competition, something that will drive both companies forward in the years to come.