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Microsoft, Google Fight Over Executives
The fight for executives gets serious
| Original publisher: CNET News,
SAN FRANCISCO - Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve
Ballmer vowed to "kill" Internet search leader Google Inc. in an
obscenity-laced tirade, and Google chased a prized Microsoft executive "like
wolves," according to documents filed Friday in an increasingly bitter legal
battle between the rivals.
The allegations, filed in a Washington state court, represent the latest
salvos in a showdown triggered by Google's July hiring of former Microsoft
executive Kai Fu-Lee to oversee a research and development center that
Google plans to open in China. Lee started at Google the day after he
resigned from Microsoft.
The tug-of-war over Lee - known for his work on computer recognition of
language - has exposed the behind-the-scenes animosity that has been brewing
between two of high-tech's best-known companies.
Ballmer's threat last November was recounted in a sworn declaration by a
former Microsoft engineer, Mark Lucovsky, who said he met with Microsoft's chief
executive 10 months ago to discuss his decision to leave the company after six
years.
After learning Lucovsky was leaving to take a job at Google, Ballmer picked up
his chair and hurled it across his office, according to the declaration.
Ballmer then pejoratively berated Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Lucovsky recalled.
"I'm going to f------ bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it
again," the declaration quotes Ballmer. "I'm going to f------ kill Google." |
Steve Ballmer, CEO Microsoft.
Technology's most passionate CEO.
"I'm going to f------ kill Google."
declares Ballmer as the war for keyword search market share escalates.
|
Before joining Google, Schmidt was a top executive at Sun Microsystems Inc. and
Novell Inc., a pair of tech companies that Microsoft has previously battled.
In a statement Friday, Ballmer described Lucovsky's recollection as a "gross
exaggeration. Mark's decision to leave was disappointing and I urged him
strongly to change his mind. But his characterization of that meeting is not
accurate."
Microsoft is suing to prevent Lee from leading Google's China expansion,
maintaining those duties would violate the terms of a noncompete agreement that
he signed as part of his employment contract.Mountain View-based Google has depicted Microsoft's lawsuit as a form of
intimidation designed to thwart a fast-growing rival that has emerged as a
formidable threat to the Redmond, Wash.-based software maker.
The Lucovsky declaration is just one piece of evidence that Google has filed in
an attempt to prove that Microsoft is on a vendetta.
Microsoft won the first round in the case in late July when King County
Superior Court Judge Steven Gonzalez issued an order temporarily barring Lee
from performing the duties that Google hired him to do. |
Steve Ballmer Quotes From
Recent Microsoft Staff Meeting
"For a long time we outsourced
search. That was a mistake... We dropped the ball on keyword search, not
anymore."
"We don't have to displace Google
or Yahoo/Overture... There's room for three major search players"
"We need a bigger piece of the
$12 Billion dollar keyword search pie."
"We cannot afford to lose anymore
key engineers to Google."
|
The two rivals are scheduled
to face off in court Tuesday when Microsoft will ask Gonzalez to extend the
order against Lee and Google until the case goes to trial in January.
As it tries to make its case, Microsoft is trying to demonstrate that Google
wanted Lee largely because he knows intimate details about Microsoft's strategy
for expanding in China and for the booming search engine market.
In its brief Friday, Microsoft alleged that Lee sent confidential documents
about the company's China strategy to Google a month before he was hired,
although Google insists all the material that Lee relayed to Google had been
made public previously.
Microsoft also released an e-mail from Jonathan Rosenberg, Google's director of
business development, in an attempt to prove the company wants Lee for other
projects besides the new China center.
"I all but insist that we pull out all the stops and pursue him like wolves,"
Rosenberg wrote of Lee. "He is an all-star and will contribute in ways that go
substantially beyond China."
Before resigning from Microsoft, Lee began to help Google plot its China
strategy with a series of suggestions, including recommending possible sites for
the new office, according to Microsoft's brief.
Microsoft alleged Lee's insights helped him win a Google contract worth more
than $10 million - a package that Google itself described as "unprecedented" for
the company.
Google paid Lee a $2.5 million signing bonus and promised a $1.5 million bonus
after one year, plus a $250,000 salary and options on 10,000 shares of Google
stock, according to court documents. If he stays for four years, Lee also will
receive another 20,000 Google shares, currently worth $5.8 million.
Lee also demanded that Google pay all his legal fees if Microsoft sued, a
request that was granted.
Bill Gates Also Focused On Google, Read More...
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