Posted on 04/16/2011 2:03:48 PM PDT by newzjunkey
A judge in Seattle today denied a former Microsoft general manager’s new attempt to carve out a role for himself at Salesforce.com, saying the revised job proposal would still run afoul of his non-compete agreement with the Redmond company, even if it didn’t precisely match his former Microsoft role. The preliminary injunction entered by King County Superior Court Judge Kimberley Prochnau includes a provision enjoining the former Microsoft GM, Matthew Miszewski, from “working in a marketing role in salesforce.com’s public or commercial sector anywhere in the world.”
Despite the restrictions, Judge Prochnau said from the bench that she still could envision Miszewski finding a job at Salesforce.com that doesn’t violate his Microsoft agreement.
“He was a major evangelist for Microsoft — he was not a low-level salesperson,” she said, adding later that the “thrust of the order is to preclude him from being the evangelist for Salesforce.com that he was for Microsoft.”
The case highlights the rising rivalry between Microsoft and Salesforce.com in cloud computing, and a thorny conflict between California and Washington employment law...
(Excerpt) Read more at geekwire.com ...
Big corporations need their China-affiliated communism at the various levels of American government to keep our current business paradigm going.
What total, utter, unbelievable B.S. As one who has been in high tech for 27 years, including some relatively high profile positions, these non-compete clauses usually aren’t worth so much toilet paper.
They’re simply trying to penalize the man for being good at what he does and to prevent him from earning a living. Nowhere does it hint that he was attempting to rip off MS customers, etc.
This is NOT capitalism at its finest, folks.
But it is croney capitalism....the law does the corporations bidding by making up law whole cloth...
Well, no....not really crony capitalism per se’. I fully understand non-compete agreements/contracts (Lord knows I’ve signed my share of them), but they’re virtually never enforced when someone leaves one company and goes to work for another that could be remotely be considered a competitor. Seriously, these things just never stand up in court so they never see a courtroom.
This poor bastard is being railroaded, big time.
Too bad this guy cannot simply move to a different state and work from there.
Uh..the Judge is saying he doesnt have a right to work this job ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD...
That’s just a bunch of BS right there...
“commercial sector anywhere in the world”
That, alone, makes this junk. Microsoft doesn’t have contract jurisdiction “anywhere in the world”.
If this guy was the Marketing GM while Apple was eating his lunch why would Salesforce want him?
Since when does the Gods in the black robes tell some one where they can work and where they can,t?
America, the end time beast.
Non compete and non solicitation agreements should be illegal. If corporations really believed in “free” markets, freedom would include the right of labor to leave and be deployed elsewhere. Non compete and non solicitation agreements are instruments used by corporations to prevent the free movement of labor.
I’ve known many corporate executives who complain about the anit-free market unions and government regulation who fail to see the hypocrisy in trying to tie fired employees into severance agreements limiting their ability to sell their labor in a free market.
Agreed. I and others have been opposed by corporates’ wives, daughters and employees in county-level commissioners’ meetings for decades. They’ve shut down competitors’ sawmills, new building attempts—all kinds of small businesses (see county-level zoning here and there against any all small manufacturing starts). Environmentalists? Look for the aforementioned. You’ll find that the environmentalists are anti-competition workers. They’re NIMBYs, HOA queens, all.
It’s a small part of a class war that’s been fought against us peasants for over thirty years. Their relatives are also the politically correct: teachers, administrators, government employees, government contractors, all.
We need all kinds of new leadership, so we need the default ahead of us.
How would you suggest Microsoft attempt to enforce their contract with this guy, without resorting to “the Gods in the black robes”?
How would you suggest Microsoft attempt to enforce their contract with this guy, without resorting to “the Gods in the black robes”?
It's a contract between two private entities. What's the problem?
Not the same. You have to sign the things to get the gig, sure. Reasonable NCC’s are one thing. Look at the job this guy’s going after and tell me he’s cannibalizing his previous employer’s clientele.
It’s nonsense. It’s pure muscle; intimidation; an attempt to prevent a good exec from furthering his career.
You suggesting he should go sell cars or something, rather than continue in the industry where he made his bones in the first place?
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