It was significantly easier for them because the transgression was done by an external contractor.
I doubt they would have been this quick or this forthright had it been an internal job.
I doubt they would have been this quick or this forthright had it been an internal job.
They can't help it. It's their corporate DNA.
I have a great deal of respect for many of their technical folks, but it's been ages since the MBAs and marketroids took control of the company. (sadly I miss the Tolkien quote I was trying to put in here about evil races... It's too early in the morning)
Also, The whole thing would have gone through a whole design process involving a PM and a Test, I doubt the 3 would have come to the same design decision (visual + architectural) as Plurk. Also, if the three decided to steal the code than it would have been three people risking their jobs instead of a vendor who was hoping "nobody would notice" esp since Plurk wasn't available from China.
They would copy Plurk, but they would copy 2009's Plurk with a product that would enter beta in 2012...
"The vendor has now acknowledged that a portion of the code they provided was indeed copied. This was in clear violation of the vendor’s contract with the MSN China joint venture, and equally inconsistent with Microsoft’s policies respecting intellectual property."
That would have been a lot harder if it had been a Microsoft team.