google v. microsoft

Was there any way I wouldn't quote this story from The Register:

'China has f*cked us' - Bill Gates
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco

Microsoft's internal politics - the slipping roadmaps, the meetings about meetings about meetings, and the lack of even a coherent medium-term strategy - are more than just a tech industry soap opera. They're a source of amusement for the Chinese Government, a departing Microsoft exec has alleged.

It's Dr Kai-Fu Lee, the former head of Microsoft's Chinese Labs and now a Google employee, who's at the center of an employment dispute between the two companies. After Google recruited Lee, Microsoft sued, claiming Lee was breaching his contract...

Gates himself said Microsoft has been "fucked" by the Chinese government and the Chinese people, according to Lee, without elaborating how.

We can speculate. Not all CEOs realize that the PRC makes it almost impossible to repatriate capital from China. And China's determination to pursue Linux, for reasons of autonomy and the ability to control its own destiny, has provided an obstacle to Microsoft's continuing growth.

"I wasn't sure if it was a sign of ignorance or a sign of insult," said Lee yesterday. Lee says that "unethical" behavior drove him from Microsoft.

"People in the government joke about Microsoft's internal politics," the AP reports Lee writing in an internal Microsoft memo.

The former Microsoft executive did outline some specific problems. Microsoft had 20 autonomous business groups in China. Although in video testimony, Steve Ballmer insisted the company had a "secret sauce" for doing business in China.

According to another Google defector, Ballmer had broke a chair and vowed to "fucking kill Google"...

Funny stuff, but I disagree with the writer's contention that this is theatrics between two companies who have two complementary monopolies. These guys are going right after each other for good reason - their roadmaps converge.

UPDATE: Here's the Reuters story.