Pot calling the kettle "black"

IN ORDER to explain what Microsoft did to Yahoo, we have already covered parts of this saga in many posts that include:

• Microsoft Fires Up Proxy War Against Yahoo as Debt Looms Over
• King of Hypocrisy(ahoo!)
• Microsoft Fight Against Yahoo Board Gets Uglier
• Microsoft's Proxy Fight May Have Begun Weeks Ago, Quietly
• Microsoft's Latest Ugly Tactics Against Google, Yahoo, and VMware
• As Yahoo Proxy War Looms, VMWare and Nokia Return to One's Mind
• Microsoft Executives Penetrate Corel, Yahoo; Is Novell Next?
• What if Microsoft Owned Yahoo (and the US Government Establishments' IT)?
• LawMedia Group May be Another Confirmed Microsoft AstroTurfing Agency
• Microsoft Executives Land Inside Microsoft Rivals
• Update on the Microsoft/Yahoo Situation: Google-Yahoo Alliance?
• Microsoft: 800 lb. Guerrilla
• Who's Bugging Google and Apple? (Updatedx2)
• Video: Bloomberg on Yahoo/Google/Microsoft
• Eye on Microsoft: Windows Under Attack from Critics, Cyber Criminals; Yahoo! Besieged by Microsoft
• The Microsoft-Influenced US Regulators Wrong on Yahoo!
• Microsoft Hijacked Yahoo! from the Inside (Updated)
• Newly-Appointed Yahoo Puppet: Let Microsoft Have Us

The story about Yahoo is one of agitation and attempts to influence the company (or ruin it) from the inside. This is why the following new story smells like espionage.

Former Microsoft exec returning after Yahoo stint

Scott Moore, who left Microsoft four years ago for Yahoo, is returning to Redmond as U.S. executive producer to lead MSN's content and programming strategy, AllThings D reported Friday.

Microsoft confirmed his re-entry in an e-mail Saturday.

[...]

Moore, who worked at Microsoft from 1995 to 2005, was the first publisher of Microsoft's online magazine, Slate, and had also been president of MSNBC.com.

This is also covered here and here.

Microsoft has already employed patent hawks, but now it's finding itself on the other side of the game: Microsoft sues CEO of Ancora for spying

Microsoft Corp. is suing a former employee, claiming that he applied for a job at the company under false pretenses and then used his role at Microsoft to gain access to confidential data related to patent litigation he is now waging.

Miki Mullor was hired by Microsoft in November 2005, after stating in his job application he was a former employee at Ancora Technologies, a Sammamish software development company that he said had gone out of business.

The headline in The Inquirer is a little more direct:

Vole hired a mole

MICROSOFT IS SUING a former employee after finding out that it didn’t do its homework properly when inviting the Ancora Technologies boss into the company.

Microsoft claims that Miki Mullor applied for the job under false pretences, using his role in the company to gain access to information of a confidential nature.

This was also covered here, here, here, and here. The accused man denies the charges and calls Microsoft "shameful". So who's right and who's lying?

Former Microsoft employee Miki Mullor responded this afternoon to the company's accusation that he wrongfully accessed confidential company documents to support a patent lawsuit filed by his startup over a Microsoft anti-piracy technology. Mullor called the allegations "shameful, dishonest attacks on my character by Microsoft – the company that stole my idea in the first place."

How can an idea be "stolen" per se? It can only be copied at a mental level.

Anyway, Microsoft is running after some more people and putting them in jail for doing precisely what Microsoft wanted and even encouraged.

A software distributor faces nine months in jail for selling 'grey' imported copies of Microsoft software. Sales firm ITAC's founder Barry Omesuh must pay €£2.5 million in damages to the software giant.

Not a smart strategy from Microsoft. ⬆