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Microsoft, Google settle over employee
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-23 15:18
Lee had worked at Microsoft since 2000 and helped develop its MSN Internet
search technology, including desktop search software rivaling Google's. He left
in July to lead Google's expansion into China after Google offered him a $10
million compensation package.
Microsoft sued Lee and Google in a Washington state court, contending that
Lee's job at Google would violate terms of the noncompete agreement that
prohibits him from doing similar work for a rival for one year. Microsoft also
accused Lee of using insider information to get his job at Google, based in
Mountain View, Calif.
Google responded with its own lawsuit against Microsoft in U.S. District
Court in San Jose, Calif.
Because of the settlement's confidential terms, it's unclear what tasks Lee
can perform until his noncompete agreement runs out.
A Washington state judge ruled in September that Lee could not work on
products, services or projects he worked on at Microsoft, including computer
search technology, pending the trial. But the judge said Lee could recruit and
staff a Google center in China.
The case has shed light on bitterness between software titan Microsoft and
search engine king Google, two high-tech powerhouses who seem increasingly to be
edging into one another's turf.
Court documents released in September said that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer,
in an obscenity-laced tirade over another former employee's having been hired
away by Google, threw a chair and vowed to "kill" Google. Ballmer has called the
characterization of his response a "gross exaggeration."
Also last fall, Microsoft released an internal e-mail from a Google executive
that suggested the search-engine company pursue Lee, then still a Microsoft
executive, "like wolves."
Microsoft had offered to settle in September, hours after the state judge
ruled that Lee could do limited work for Google pending a full trial. That trial
was set for next month.
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