John Paczkowski

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Plurk Milking This Microsoft Thing for All It’s Worth

December 17, 2009 at 6:58 am PT

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plurk-logopdf-1-pageAs earnest as it might have been, Microsoft’s apology to Plurk, the microblogging service whose code and design it copied, has not eased the start-up’s outrage over the incident or its desire to squeeze all the PR it can out of it.

Though Microsoft (MSFT) has taken responsibility for the offense–perpetrated by a third-party vendor with which it contracted–it has not offered accountability, says Plurk. And that makes the microblogging outfit inclined to pursue legal action, or threaten it, anyway.

“We are currently looking at all possibilities on how to move forward in response to Microsoft’s recent apology statement,” Plurk co-founder Alvin Woon wrote in a post to the company’s Web site. “We are still thinking of pursuing the full extent of our legal options available due [to] the seriousness of the situation….”

Elaborating, Woon added, “This event wasn’t just a simple matter of merely lifting code; Due to the nature of the uniqueness of our product and user interface, it took a good amount of deliberate studying and digging through our code with the full intention of replicating our product user experience, functionality and end results. This product was later launched and heavily promoted by Microsoft with its big marketing budget.”

It would seem, then, that Plurk is angling for some sort of financial settlement. And given the situation, it may get one–though perhaps it would be better off seeking it not from Microsoft, but the vendor that actually pilfered Plurk’s code. Not as good a PR angle there, though, I suppose.

Tagged with: accountability, Alvin Woon, apology, code, design, digital, financial settlement, interface, Internet, John Paczkowski, legal action, microblogging, Microsoft, Plurk, PR, software, start-up, third party, user experience, vendor, Web site

comments so far. Add yours.

  • Anonymous

    Is it an Indian outsource company by any chance that Microsoft contracted? Why can’t Microsoft name that vendor?

  • theghostofnetscape

    John — do you seriously think that when Microsoft contracts a small, outside company to reverse engineer then re-build the product of an existing player in a field where they're trying to bust in, then they put the entire Microsoft machinery in effect to beat the crap out of that existing player — when this happens, do you think we should be focusing on the sub-contractor, or Microsoft itself? Do you think stockholders or investors are running away from the incumbent because a sub-contractor is entering the market, or because Microsoft is entering the market? Microsoft enters every market late, doing products quick and dirty and throwing a ton of marketing money to weaken their opponents before they even ship a product. They got caught hiring someone who took a short cut, and they didn't exercise their oversight, probably hoping they could get away with it. Don't blame the victim here. I wish more little companies which have been screwed by MediocreSoft over the years (there are plenty of them, as well as plenty of big companies screwed by 'em, too, had the guts to defend themselves and were in an environment where they could. No matter how much people criticize this corporate monolith, it doesn't do justice to its legacy of unfair competition, bad market choices, and shoddy execution. On behalf of every employee at companies they've hijacked, and every consumer who's slogged through one of their shoddy product releases, they deserve every slam they get, and then some.

  • theghostofnetscape

    John — do you seriously think that when Microsoft contracts a small, outside company to reverse engineer then re-build the product of an existing player in a field where they're trying to bust in, then they put the entire Microsoft machinery in effect to beat the crap out of that existing player — when this happens, do you think we should be focusing on the sub-contractor, or Microsoft itself? Do you think stockholders or investors are running away from the incumbent because a sub-contractor is entering the market, or because Microsoft is entering the market? Microsoft enters every market late, doing products quick and dirty and throwing a ton of marketing money to weaken their opponents before they even ship a product. They got caught hiring someone who took a short cut, and they didn't exercise their oversight, probably hoping they could get away with it. Don't blame the victim here. I wish more little companies which have been screwed by MediocreSoft over the years (there are plenty of them, as well as plenty of big companies screwed by 'em, too, had the guts to defend themselves and were in an environment where they could. No matter how much people criticize this corporate monolith, it doesn't do justice to its legacy of unfair competition, bad market choices, and shoddy execution. On behalf of every employee at companies they've hijacked, and every consumer who's slogged through one of their shoddy product releases, they deserve every slam they get, and then some.

  • http://twitter.com/ilamont ilamont

    Clippy?

  • Hamranhansenhansen

    Bob.

  • Hamranhansenhansen

    The vendor is not an issue. It's a Microsoft product. The lead on the project was inside Microsoft, who are a multibillion dollar publicly traded international company. Outsourcing is not a license to steal or an excuse for it. What's next? Windows sucks because of the maintenance people at the Redmond campus?

    Not only that, Microsoft's business model is cloning existing software. They know where the line is. It's a major responsibility of theirs to make sure they aren't simply copying stuff. They are always under time pressure because their competitors original versions of each product are already out there when Microsoft begins building something. When Compaq cloned the IBM PC BIOS, the only engineers who could work on it were ones that had already sworn depositions saying they had never seen the inside of the IBM product and never would.

    And Microsoft has stolen code many times before. Both AVI and WMA are proprietary Microsoft formats that are no longer owned by Microsoft because courts looked under the hood and found Apple QuickTime and Fraunhofer MP3 hiding in there, respectively.