What it all comes down to is this:

He signed a contract. Contracts are binding. He will be held to that contract until the courts conclude that the contract itself violated any laws or until Microsoft and Google reach an agreement. Hell, if his contract stated he couldn't eat meat on Tuesdays, he would be bound to abide by this. It has nothing to do with ethics, philosophy, or geography. It has only to with contractual law.

Maxwolf think... China is still number one in population (tough India will be soon the biggest one) we see a same patterns here going on in development like Japan years ago. China is climbing up to the top of the hill already in exporting electronics, furniture, clothing... Imagine how cheap Microsoft can develop software in China? And exporting again but 100 or 1000 times the price. It is a fact that the Chinese are very innovative, so as Indians and masters in programming! WHy should MS need China? Simple uh?

Microsoft already has offices in China so I don't know what the big deal is. It's something about that Dr. Lee specific that they are not telling everyone else but will seek legal action against. Just going to have to wait I think.

Heh most of you don't even realize Bill Gates isn't the owner of Microsoft, he isn't even majority stock holder anymore...

Nope, this company isn't evil.

I said it before, and now I have a reason to say it again. I wouldn't work for Microsoft for any amount of money.

I don't think they hire trolls fewt. J/K.

So you can't get a job there, huh? :-P

Looks like the "Free Market" rhetoric is coming back to haunt The Beast...

Enjoy, Billy!!

Interesting stuff. So if I read that right then Microsoft might have a traitor on their hands. I am not saying this happened but if Dr. Lee really does have that information Microsoft is afraid of then who is to say Google did not offer him twice what he was making and one hell of a signing bonus?

I am not all to sure what those companies have planned for China...does anyone know what the plans are in China 10+ years and why Microsoft would freak out like this?

I think this is a really funny development (no pun intended), but when MS hired Anders Helsberg (my appologies if I misspelled his name) from Borland, they got sued by Borland. MS eventually paid something like $150 million to Borland to make them go away and to agree to give them better access to their upcoming stuff.

Wonder what they are hoping to get from Google...???? :-)

adiosjefe because many here trying to think 'trendy' and wanting to pretend to be internet guru no. 1. However they have no idea how one company is in need of the other. Behind goes a huge factory called marketing. There is nothing wrong with Google, they do very well, so as with Microsoft they also do very well. And yes they come and go maybe Technorati will be the big hit the next coming years. For me it doesn't matter where to find my info by a search, Google, MSN, Yahoo. Diferences are just minimum for the consumer. The tech guys however have preferences as here you talk about money and which search engine brings them in the fastest way to a number one search position.
It is all relative you know, just what you say and also relative if you talk about trends. Today it's red tomorrow it's blue. ANd you always find people who want to go with the flow and the mass. Microsoft is so bad, but how about the fact that they still manage to be the number one OS maker in the world? Right as all those customers screaming using the same product and pretend out of trendy reasons to be a Say Linux user but at home it turns out to be a MS OS user instead. And the big companies? THey need these kind of people of course read $$$ read marketing. Google needs MS and MS needs Google. It is such a old thing in marketing and sales, one doesn;t go without the other.... Up and down, left and right, Mc Donalds and Burgerking name it...

how ironic
how many times have we seen headlines here of executives from tons of other companies joining microsoft? now when they get a taste of their own medicine and one of theirs jumps ship to another company they get all touchy... lol get used to it!

Why do you people love Google so much? What have they actually done? I am going to save this posting. In 10 years some other new company will come along like Google and everyone will love this new company and hate Google.

I simple reason why people love Google.

Try going to http://moon.google.com

It's to celebrate the anniversary of the "alleged" moon landings.

Anyway, so demonstrate WHY people love google, zoom right in to maximum zoom level...

Microsoft are serious, Google write serious software, but with a sense or humour..

Just recently, Google is doing their humoristic stuff, and people love Google.
MS have done some pretty awesome job over the years. There is something called legacy. Who doesn’t have legacy problem take any big giant UNIX, Intel, AMD, SPARC machines etc. In spite of all this reasons, MS is number 1 for long time and they will in OS that’s for sure. Every time new OS comes from MS people try it, criticize it. Some times people like you, are just too bias about MS. You don’t talk about nice things they have done like awesome media player. If you are too big fan of Google, why are they charging $$$ for their Earth software?

BTW, Princeton University conducted a survey about accurate search engine. MS beats Google by far. I agree, Google search is fast, but not as accurate as MS search. So who gives a $hit if it takes 0.05 second or 0.10 second. If the search is not accurate, you have to perform search again anyway.

Lots of

Unfortunatly, the big problem, for the 99% of the worlds population that live outside the USA, is that MSN Search simply sucks. It's very US Centric, the results are very US biased. Google is not...

Microsoft, Princetown, and the American public forget how small the US is in global scales...

Sorry but isn't it right for Microsoft to protect their goods esp. when you or me or anybody else signed a contract out of your own free will to keep company information inside? I read here don't hire foreigners in the first place, why you think Microsoft is such a big company? Buy a ticket and travel the world I would say to get some cultural knowledge, otherwise keep it with your own low level talks. I can understand why a discussion here goes out of hand this way. I lived 2 years in the states and just shocked how many people still use the word nikkers and have to see same people making comments here with the same underlying ideas.

if it betters the community at large (internet community), then i say, let it be.

If a person wants to work somewhere then no company besides the hireing company should have any say legal or otherwise.

Woo hoo hoo. Microsoft scared? Ha ha ha.

No seriously - ha ha ha ha ha.

Confucious say;

If you want to protect trade secrets, then don't hire foreigners in the first place.

I seem to remember that copies of Windows 2000 couldn't be exported to certain countries because they contained a 128 bit encryption program which has military uses. And the Chinese have that by now too. Billy Gates just didn't learn a lesson...

Actually they couldnt be exported due to certain countries forbidding certain encryption methods for monitoring. Get your info right please

Good morning dude, it's a global world.
Where are your ancestors from or are you RED NECK?

Surely if Microsoft want to keep these people, pay them more, give them better working conditions (google bean bags?).

Microsoft need to learn, not everything in life can be sorted with a lawsuit.

You cannot make your staff stay, you can only make them WANT to stay....

I believe Microsoft is one of the best paying company in the world. But Microsoft is way too big, so when a company get big, they install bureaucracy. In a bureaucracy environment, you cannot do what's right, you are told what's right to do. And this cause many employees to seek position elsewhere.

As a former Manager at Microsoft, I can assure you that Microsoft is NOT one of the best paying companies. They pay considerably less than most companies and treat the people in the American call centers as "disposable".

People come to them with lawsuits. Most of them for things that are so brutally retarted it would blow your mind.

Just for the record. Con-competitive agreements are bullcrap. That's basically saying to an employee, if you come and work woitrh us, in a field where you have all your experience in, if you leave us you have to forget all your training and experienmce for at least x years and take a lesseer job where you dont have any experience. The very thought is perposterous.
Also, just for the record, Bill Gates violated his own anti-competitive agreement with IBM when he left the os/2 developing team and went home to microsoft and magically created windows NT based on the knowledge he gained while working at IBM.

To lie is one thing but you are just making that up right there about NT. Bill did "magically" create NT because it was the result of failed business relationships. IBM and Microsoft agreed that IBM would develop OS/2 2.0, to replace OS/2 1.3 and Windows 3.0, while Microsoft would develop a new operating system, OS/2 3.0, to later succeed OS/2 2.0.

Obviously this did not happen, I took this information directly from wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/...dows#Windows_3.1_and_NT

I've worked for many companies like MS that force you to sign that crap. Of course, I broke it every time and dared them to sue because they lost every time I went to court.

Sounds a bit mafia-like to me. I can see it now - a squezzy Italian maffia (microsoft) Don voice on the edge of a long microsoft office table - " once you join of theres only one way you can ever leave" :D

Sadly enough, Microsoft makes them selves yet again look redicules.

Microsoft reaches yet another new low.

if you are not with us, you cannot be with anyone else, take out the guns and terminate the matter. typical american frustration..."ruling" the world is'nt what it seems to be in their comicbook succes story's...how much more innocent men and women have to die in Irak before they understand that they are far from allmighty ? and pretty vulnarable as well...hows about gadaffi dodging their most advanced techical war gadget ? how's about the vietnam trauma ? how's about another defeat in the caribean (cuba) ? and next disastraus adventure venezuela ? I f you want to play God, accept that occacionally the devil will whip your ass....

There are other websites more suitable for discussing politics.

Blah blah blah blah blah.

Typical non-American idiot bullcrap.

Waaa waaa waaa......I'm not American so I must cry about everything.

Waaaa waaaaa waaaa

Hey Robertguda, I was under the impression this topic was about a former Microsoft Employee going to work for Google, which I see no problem with as long as he does not use knowledge of Microsofts plans to enrich Google or perform the same job he did at Microsoft. That would be a Breach of contract.

Please do not turn these comments in to your own personal sounding board for how bad the Americans are. But, since you brought it up, let me just say that you are right. The Americans should have left that brutal butcher in power and done nothing. They should have let the people there not have a hope for a future. They should have ignored the entire situation even after it was found out that the "brain" behind the twin towers attack was there and supported by that government.

I'm not suggesting that the Americans are right but, what would your government do if its country was attacked and large amounts of people were killed? Would they do nothing? I for one am glad that the Americans fought back. It keeps the little tyrants from becoming big ones.

Dude its spelled IRAQ. How many times do they have to print it on the screen, I-R-A-Q. Dumb ass. I don't like your comment at all it has no place, but on top of that you can't spell you worthless piece of garbage.

This entire issue has nothing to do with countries. The issue has to do with capitalism. Capitalism doesn't exist only in the US. And people say Americans are the narrow minded ones...

Fought back?

First of all there's never been any evidence WHATSOEVER that Saddam instigated 9/11. Additionally, attacking Iraq wasn't "fighting back" at Osama Bin Laden either!

But this isn't a political forum so take it elsewhere!!

You are indeed a talking head.

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That's about how much sense you all make. :)

LOL. :) I liked your post better...

If Lee signed a confidentiality and non-compete, then he CAN be sued!

Well the whole idea is just stupid. So he signed an agreement. Even if Google DOESN'T hire him, it won't stop him from telling what he knows.. And Microsoft has to prove it. If he has directly knowledge of information, and Google capitalizes on it, then they have something, but knowledge doesn't necessarily mean guilt...

Besides, if he left the company on bad terms, he may not be the only one with the knowledge.. there may be more.... How do they prove who said what? I could simply send an email to some executive at Google.. does it mean the information came from Lee? Maybe yes, maybe know, getting a judge to sign an injunction to keep Google from an official "hire" does nothing. I am sure he has a phone, email, and a plethora of communcations in which to notify Google.. if in fact he does utilize the knowleged he gained from Microsoft.. This would be extremely difficult to prove.

"Google announced Lee's hiring...a rare occurrence as the company normally does not publicize the hiring of new executives."

How smart is that? Google ASKED for trouble. Did nobody learn anything from Netscape? Competing with the gorilla is fine. TAUNTING it is stupid.

Hehe.. I like that.. Good point :)

lol - good point

Amen pipewrench! This Microsoft lawsuit is utterly ridiculous. Bill Gates does sound like a Soviet comisar in trying to control where somebody gets a job. And what can he really do about it in China any way?

On the other hand, Iran and Iraq fought an eight year border war using World War I vintage mustard gas. People died just like in the trenches on the Western Front. It's easy to say that Saddam Hussein had WMDs because he openly used used them!

lol microsoft sucks.

This is freaking stupid.

Microsoft cannot control who can hire people from their company. This is not the former Soviet Union.

What turd lickers.

Sure they can -- when it was an executive that signed non-compete clauses when he was first taken on by the company.

Nope. You can get around those all the time. I had to sign one and it was waived when I was hired by a company that I wasn't supposed to be hired by.

They are useless really.

Of course they are if a company waives one, but they are there should a company need to use it. Just because it was pointless in your case, doesnt mean that is always the case

I agree with Pipewrench. These arrangements are just legal deterrents. All Google has to do is justify that Dr. Lee's job description has nothing to do with his previous responsibilites in MSoft (easily done). I don't think MS expects to win, they just want to scare potential deserters.

Typical Amercan response : if we say there are weapons of mass destruction then there must be . In this case we have a Chinese that poses a threat to Microsoft. Let us nuke Google. Do you stupid Americans ever learn your lessons?

Actually microsoft has a pretty strong leg to stand on. If they don't waive the non-compete clause then its a violation. I had the same thing happen to me. since my former company wouldn't drop it i could not be hired.

How can you possibly talk about Microsoft hiring practices and WMD in the same thought? If you want to be Anti-America, fine. Just do it when it's on topic.

As for learning our lessons, words written in contracts are important. If a company decides to enforce a clause, they are within their legal right. As for this case, there are lots of specifics that we don't know. However, it's likely that Microsoft wants to stop the brainsuck. Look at the cover of the Seattle Times today -- BillG begging professors to turn out more CE degree kids.

Your small-minded assessment is laughable, John. In what country do you do business?

I disagree Belkode; this guy wouldn't have been hired away if not for a certain, specific skillset in which Google has worked heavily as of late. This isn't an accountant that's becoming a finance guy on paper -- this is a strategic, high level acquisition. I think you'll find that Google will likely offer a buyout of the clause for around $150k, and that's the end of the litigation.

You fawning American succubus. Google has not an iota to prove. MIcrosoft has already cast the aspersion. Do you American idiots understand anything about communications or are all your thumbs stuck in your anus

What in the hell does the American Government's past policies on weapons of mass destruction have to do with a business decision made by a publicly traded company?

"Microsoft released a statement saying that by accepting the position, Lee will be breaking confidentiality and non-competition agreements he signed when accepting his position at Microsoft."

and

"He has accepted a position focused on the same set of technologies and strategies for a direct competitor in egregious violation of his explicit contractual obligations," Microsoft argued in a statement.

Seems to make logical sense to me. It also seems logical that Microsoft (or any company in their position) would take the same course of action-American or not.

Stop with your senseless tripe.

You're funny.

Hey, you can keep your neo-nazi, political UK bulls*** on *THAT* side of the ocean, you London falls reject.

We Americans don't necessarily follow EVERYTHING our government does. Just because its American goverment, don't ASSUME we Americans are all for it, understand babbling idiot?

And don't call us stupid, we weren't the ones that WARNED you dumb, lame, d*** sucking pigs about Bin Laden and Saddam in a press release after 9/11, and for 4 years we kept warning you, and you refused to listen, then your London got butt ****ed on Worldwide TV, how about that, eh? Do you STUPID europeans learn from other peoples tragedy? I bet you dumb asses are still trying to figure out where Iraq is located aren't you?

Just remember your a** is a hell of a lot closer than we are to more bombs, you moron.

Dude I got news for you, if they wanted to hire you, they would have hired you. They didn't hire you for OTHER reasons.. One company cannot prevent the hiring of another. That's just totally rediculous. First of all, its none of their business. Secondly, who told them they were hiring you? Even them prompting to call for a reference doesn't raise a flag.. for one thing you are not REQUIRED to disclose a previous employer.. and even if you did, you can simply state that you don't want your previous employer contacted. That is the old "wool over your eyes" routine at its best right there..

If you believe they didn't hire you for a non-disclosure agreement from another company.. Then you should buy my watch.. Its a Rolex.. I will sell for 20 bucks and you can get thousands on Ebay!

Bingo!

You know its an attrocity that you were not on that London subway.. It's too bad they didn't have just one more suicidal to sic on your dumb ass.

You stupid arrogant american Lardarse. Your own inteligence ( hahaha ) warned you of 9/11 so dont think your words cut anything here. Your words highlight your stupidity, are you sore for losing to london ?

Chill out Ugly American ! I AM CANADIAN !!! Your problem is endemic to the good ol' U S of A. You have been brainwashed to see CONSPIRACIES everywhere. Now CHINA IS buying GOOGLE AND THEN SWALLOWING MICROSOFT. Starring Harrison Ford and Julia Roberts

It's a breach of information they are scared of, you know, industry secrets? Kind of like the ones you got in the 'ol closet?

I don't know, does the IQ of foreign people rise with each new generation?

This isn't McDonald's Pipewrench, this is a real company telling you not to do something with the information he knows.