RSS feedThere’s been a lot of talk about Apple’s recent subpoenas for Mac rumor sites to give up their leads for leaks about unreleased products, particularly in the blogosphere, where Apple bashing seems to be a recent trend.
I don’t see anyone arguing that companies such as Apple should be completely open about new products and their development status. Of course not, people understand that when running a business, the timing and delivery of such messages have the opportunity to make or break a product or even a company. Even Scoble won’t argue that one, having intentionally kept mum about Microsoft products in his blog. I guess the blogging as open communication mantra doesn’t hold in all cases.
So assuming we agree companies need to make the decisions on when and how products are announced, why are so many people up in arms about it? Probably because they don’t know how the process works.
The problem for Apple, is that employees and third party people exposed to yet to be released products, will have signed an NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) saying that they will not do so. This is a legally binding agreement that would have been signed willingly. Having signed countless NDAs over the years, many being from Apple, I can testify that not once was I forced into signing one.
So in order to regain control of communications, Apple goes after the NDAed folks who leaked, and because they have no idea who they are, they need to go after the rumor sites that reported them.
Apple aren’t after the sites, they’re after the employees who broke one of the most basic principles of working for a technology company. Keeping quiet about unreleased products. And if you’re not in the industry, then I guess yes you could perhaps be excused for a little Apple bashing.
In researching this, I came across an even better post, When The Going Gets Tough The Press Get All Whiney, by Adrian Sutton on his Randomness blog.