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Excerpt - Microsoft is on track to outsource more than 1,000 jobs a year to China, according to blistering evidence released yesterday in Microsoft's increasingly nasty spat with Google over an employee who jumped ship in July. In a revelation that highlights the complexity of China President Hu Jintao's visit to Seattle and Microsoft on Monday, legal filings detailed claims of how Microsoft had offended the Chinese government by not outsourcing as many jobs as promised to Chinese technology vendors. Chief Executive Steve Ballmer visited China in 2003 and promised to step up the pace, from $33 million worth of...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Google Inc. countersued Microsoft Corp. Thursday in a legal battle over a prized research engineer that illustrates the escalating tensions between the technology titans. The tussle began earlier this week after Google -- the maker of the Internet's most widely used search engine -- raided Microsoft's management ranks by hiring Kai Fu-Lee to open a new research and development office in China. Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, promptly sued Google and Lee in Washington state court, alleging a noncompete agreement that the engineer signed in 2000 prevented him from defecting. Google retaliated...

BREAKING NEWS: Microsoft files lawsuit against Google, saying Google's decision to hire former Microsoft executive Kai-Fu Lee violates noncompete and confidentiality agreements he signed. Full article coming shortly.