Microsoft sues worker for joining Salesforce.com

Microsoft is suing a former employee, Matthew Miszewski, for joining a major competitor, Salesforce.com.

According to the lawsuit filed Wednesday in King County Superior Court, Microsoft says Miszewski breached his employment agreement with Microsoft because he took a job at Salesforce.com doing what he did at Microsoft.

Microsoft has also filed for an injunction to prevent Miszewski from working at Salesforce.com, and the court has granted a temporary restraining order, according to Microsoft.

"This case involves an employee with knowledge of Microsoft?s sensitive customer and competitive information going to work for Salesforce.com, a direct competitor, in a job that is focused on the same solutions and customers," David Howard, deputy general counsel at Microsoft, said in a statement. "This directly violates the confidentiality and non-competition agreements signed upon beginning work with our company."

Salesforce.com declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Starting in 2007, Miszewski was an industry market development manager in Microsoft's Worldwide Public Sector group. He left Microsoft Jan. 18 to join Salesforce.com as its senior vice president of global public sector.

Microsoft competes with Salesforce.com in customer-relationship-management software and services, also known as CRM. The two companies also sell competing cloud-computing platforms, which both companies consider areas with immense potential for growth.

According to court documents filed by Microsoft, Miszewski had access to confidential information on the company's business strategy, sales information and marketing plans, and he had signed a confidentiality and non-compete agreement that prevented him from disclosing information or joining a competing company for a year after his departure from Microsoft.

A hearing has been set for Feb. 10.

Update 5:01 p.m.

Miszewski declined to comment on the litigation.

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