Apple loses MobileMe tech director to Thumbplay
updated 03:30 pm EST, Mon March 1, 2010
May boost competition for iTunes
The director of technology for MobileMe, Pablo Calamera, has left Apple to become the CTO of Thumbplay, reports say. Calamera will start work at Thumbplay on March 8th, ending a 10-year stint with Apple. The executive also has experience with Danger and WebTV, companies which were ultimately bought by Microsoft. At Thumbplay he will be in charge of all of the company's tech efforts.
Thumbplay could prove to be a future competitor for Apple, as it recently launched a beta of Thumbplay Music, a streaming service. For $10 per month users can listen to an unlimited number of songs, although like Last.fm or Pandora, none of the tracks can be kept. Apple is believed to be working on a way of streaming music from the iTunes Store over the web, based on tracks a person may have already bought. The company could potentially offer subscriptions, but rumors to that effect have subsided.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2009
Good riddance!
Mysteriously disappearing contacts, unexpected mail downtime, inexcusable speed to sync an iDisk, etc., etc... Can we please get MobileMe, AppleTV, and Snow Leopard server up to par with the rest of Apple's product offerings?!