July 27, 2005
Google, Microsoft in court
A King County Superior Court judge heard arguments Wednesday in Microsoft's motion for a temporary restraining order seeking to prevent recently departed executive Kai-Fu Lee from continuing in his new role with Google. For more details, see this story on the arguments made by the companies in court and in their legal motions. Judge Steven Gonzalez is expected to issue a decision on Microsoft's motion Thursday afternoon.
As the story notes, the case is providing an inside glimpse into the competition between Microsoft and Google. In its motion for a temporary restraining order, for example, Microsoft disclosed the fact that its executives held a previously secret March briefing, entitled "The Google Challenge." And Lee's declaration recounts conversations with Bill Gates, Ballmer and others.
Here are links to PDFs of three key documents:
Posted by Todd Bishop at July 27, 2005 10:26 PM
A bit extreme! Two giant companies sues one another over scientist. Great. In his declaration Dr. Lee mentioned "For reasons not material to this Declaration, I approached Google regarding possible employment in May of 2005 as I understood that Google was interested in establishing a presence in China." What was actually reason for this move? I don't think it was the money. I see Microsoft HR department was involved (Declaration of Marla Miles). It's possible that Dr. Lee had serious concern about his further career with Microsoft. If he had some performance review issues, for example, his management at Microsoft can fire him without any problems.
During the 7/18/05 meeting his employment with Microsoft was terminated.. Dr. Lee became Google Vice President, Engineering and President of Google China.
