Timmons speaks at a Port of Quincy event relating to data center tax breaks
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — In a move that has been referred to alternately as “poaching,” “stealing” and “snagging,” Apple reportedly hired Microsoft’s data center general manager Kevin Timmons yesterday, to an unspecified position, though one generally expected to closely related to the company’s near-complete 500,000 square-foot data center in Maiden, North Carolina.
In a post on his Green Data Center Blog, breaking the news that Timmons was leaving Microsoft for Apple, Dave Ohara observed that perhaps the most interesting point was the fact that the most scarce resource in the data center business was not power or cooling, but talent at the executive level.
“It is such a small world in data centers and especially smaller for the executive rank,” wrote Ohara, “information flows as recruiters call and others want opinions on various candidates and companies to work for. Besides the executives, senior data center design engineers are heavily recruited.”
Timmons leaves the same post at Microsoft that Data Center GM Mike Manos left several years ago to work at Digital Realty Trust. Manos has since moved on to join Nokia.
A Forbes report on the new Timmons post focuses on the hiring that Apple is doing, pointing out, based on the company’s own job postings, that the consumer computing giant has a big appetite for data center engineers at the moment.
Prior to working at Microsoft, says the Forbes report, Timmons worked at Yahoo, and was at GeoCities before that company was acquired by Yahoo.
Rich Miller of Data Center Knowledge reported yesterday that Microsoft had confirmed Timmons’ departure, but would not confirm where he was going.
About Liam Eagle
Liam Eagle has worked as a contributor to the Web Host Industry Review since its inception in 2000, and as editor since 2003. He has been editor of the WHIR's print magazine since its launch. His daily involvement in the gathering and reporting of Web hosting news and his regular interaction with Web hosting leaders gives him an uncommonly broad appreciation of the issues and tends facing the business. Through his WHIR blog, Liam spots Web hosting trends and offers opinions on the industry-wide impacts of major developments and the motivation behind big announcements. Follow him on Twitter @liameagle
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