RSSiPhone prototype suicide case had previous violations, says Foxconn
By Tim Conneally | Published July 27, 2009, 2:55 PM
Sun Danyong, the 25-year old employee of Apple contractor Foxconn who committed suicide after losing a prototype iPhone reportedly had a history of misplacing secret prototypes, Foxconn told reporters yesterday.
After a prototype next-gen iPhone that was Sun's responsibility went missing, he became the target of an investigation that allegedly involved physical violence and humiliation. Shortly thereafter, Sun plunged off of a twelve story apartment building to his death. Investigators said there were no other suspicious markings on his body and determined that it was suicide.
Apple issued a public apology, and Foxconn has given monetary compensation to Sun's family, reportedly including more than $44 thousand and a free Macbook.
But it is still unclear if Sun was engaged in industrial espionage or if Foxconn used unduly harsh techniques to question him. General manager of Chinese operations at Foxconn James Lee, however, claims Sun Danyong actually lost track of secret prototypes in the past and that his explanations for this one were not convincing.
"Several times he had some products missing, then he got them back...We don't know who took the product, but it was at his stop," Lee said.
Every company must to have it's secrets, or they work will jsut be used to make some one else, that usually doesn't work that much, get the credits.
The limits of doing this must be always controled. If they subcontract a company, they should check from time to time if they are behaving!
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|Apple is building itself a wonderful reputation. People are dying now because of Apple's insistence on enforcing secrecy whatever it takes.
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|He has supposedly made a big mistake, but may be someone has "helped" him to jump off the balcony? I have hard time to believe the suicide theory.
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|Do I smell cover up? Next thing we will hear is that he wrote graffiti and kicked dogs too!
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|Hmmm. If my cat keeps eating the butter on the countertop I'm not going to beat it to a pulp, I'm going to put the butter someplace else (in the fridge, maybe), out of reach of the cat....
I don't understand if they're using the fact that he's done it before as defense for them using, harsh techniques or to justify the fact that he killed himself. Either way, they're in the wrong.
And $44,000 and a Macbook? WTF. I suppose it could be worse, they could have just apologized and said 'bye'.
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