Wall Street Journal announced that Joel Podolny, Dean of Yale University’s School of Management, was hired by Apple Inc. to start a project called Apple University as vice president and dean.

Apple declined to provide information either on the university or on the new position. Mr. Podolny abandoned the position as dean of Yale’s business school in November, however, he will still be working at Yale for what rests of the year, according to a Yale’s spokeswoman and will take over the new position at Apple University at the beginning of 2009.

One might suggest that Apple will be needing a formal training centre for sales staff of the Apple Store (since they are selling worldwide) or for Apple experts of the Best Buy shops network: but in this case Apple hardly needs the dean of a business school to do the training.

Apple might also see it as a school for IT administrators or programmers working on iPhone and OS X platforms, but, again, where does Mr. Podolny, an expert in sociology and management, come in handy here? Or is it that they need the dean in capacity of a consultant on psychology & management?

According to one person who claims to be familiar with the matter, Apple University is “intended broadly as an HR type function for developing leadership and other required skills and knowledge within the organization”. So, what is Apple University all about? Apple University may serve as a company’s training division, thus mirroring a similar program as that of Pixar. In fact, corporate universities offering training for staff members are a common practice within large corporations now.

One of the most famous ones is McDonald’s Hamburger University where thousands of employees attend classes every year. Pixar Animation Studios has one as well, where Steve Jobs was the largest shareholder before the studio was sold to Walt Disney Co. in 2006.

And last but not the least, there is 77Academy, a highly selective training course in new media marketing for talented graduates coming from top business schools and Universities, offered by 77Agency, a leading independent new media agency.