Steve Ballmer Blocks Apple's Poach of Its Data Center Manager?

Steve Ballmer reportedly blocked Apple's poach of Kevin Timmins, the General Manager of Datacenter Services at Microsoft since 2009, according to BusinessInsider.

Timmins was apparently unhappy at Microsoft and wanted badly to move back to California. He went to Apple and told them that he could bring down the costs of its data centers and convinced the company to hire him.

When Microsoft learned that Timmins was planning to leave they tried to convince him to stay at the company.


Eventually Timmons met with Ballmer, but Timmons had an attitude, a source tells us. After that, rumor has it that Ballmer called Apple and said the company would have legal problems with Timmons if the company agreed to hire him. As soon as Ballmer threatened Apple, that was the end of that story. It called off the deal, and Timmons was out of a job.

The data center guru is now working at CyrusOne, a data center solutions company.

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