Kai-Fu Lee’s uneventful departure from Google to start a Beijing incubator really belies the spectacle that attended the beginning of his tenure at the search giant.

Lee’s train-hopping from Microsoft (MSFT) to Google (GOOG) back in 2005 touched off a five-month pitched battle marked by all manner of inanities. Among them was this account of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s now-infamous alleged chair-tossing tantrum told by former Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Mark Lucovsky:

Prior to joining Google, I set up a meeting on or about November 11, 2004 with Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer to discuss my planned departure…At some point in the conversation, Mr. Ballmer said: “Just tell me it’s not Google.” I told him it was Google.

At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office. Mr. Ballmer then said: “F–king Eric Schmidt is a f–king p–sy. I’m going to f–king bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I’m going to f–king kill Google.”

Thereafter, Mr. Ballmer resumed trying to persuade me to stay…Among other things, Mr. Ballmer told me that “Google’s not a real company. It’s a house of cards.”

And there were others as well. Certainly, the sourcing of some of Microsoft’s legal docs was amusing. As I wrote at the time:

Kai-Fu Lee may be a top-drawer research engineer, but his understanding of the mechanics of Microsoft’s desktop environment leaves a bit to be desired. Turns out Microsoft recovered Lee’s employment contract with Google, which figures prominently in its suit against the search leader (see “And, if you’re beaten by Microsoft thugs, our generous health plan will cover you”), from the “recycle bin” of one of Lee’s computers. Odd that Lee would choose to browse offers from his employer’s rivals on his work computer. Odder still that having done so, he would neglect to scrub them with a secure erase program. Clearly, he must have been a bit lightheaded after learning of Google’s promise to allow his stock options in the company to vest even if he was unable to start work for a year.

Then there was Lee’s testimony about a meeting with Bill Gates, during which the Microsoft chairman blew his top, shouting that the Chinese people and the Chinese government had “f—ked” Microsoft.

And, finally, there were the videotaped depositions, like one from Ballmer that included this great bit:

Ballmer: “Kai-Fu had a–a distinct commitment and responsibility on behalf of the company for being the senior executive here in Redmond, with responsibility for godfathering, shepherding all of our R&D activities in China. It’s a structure we also use for India. We have a senior executive with knowledge of India be the R&D godfather for India, encourage work to go there, shepherd, and–and mentor people in the area. Kai-Fu had that broad, important responsibility for China.”

Deposing lawyer: “This term, ‘godfather’–is that an official title within the Microsoft organization?”

Hard to believe Kai-Fu Lee’s tenure at Google China ended with such a whimper, although there are many quiet rumblings of trouble he had with Google’s top execs in Silicon Valley, given the bang it began with.

But it did. And here endeth the history lesson.

“Prior to joining Google, I set up a meeting on or about November 11, 2004 with Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer to discuss my planned departure….At some point in the conversation Mr. Ballmer said: ‘Just tell me it’s not Google.’ I told him it was Google. At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office.”

- Former Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Mark Lucovsky

“I’ve never thrown a chair in my life….By and large I made a commitment nine years ago that I was not going to curse. I know I’ve had one or two transgressions in nine years, but I made that commitment to myself. Is that one of them? I don’t recall.”
– Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

The rumors are true. Mark Lucovsky, the engineer whose departure from Microsoft (MSFT) allegedly sent CEO Steve Ballmer into a paroxysm of profanity and chair-tossing, has left Google (GOOG) for a new position at VMware (VMW), the company has confirmed.

Lucovsky, once a Microsoft Distinguished Engineer and a key architect of Windows and the company’s ill-starred Dot-Net strategy, was hired away by Google in 2004. Now, five years later, he has unceremoniously left the search sovereign for a senior engineer position at VMware. There, he’ll be reunited with Paul Maritz, president and CEO of VMware, who once served as Vice President of the Platform Strategy and Developer Group at Microsoft.

Zing.

Ellison went on to note that Oracle has big plans for Sun’s SPARC chips as well. “Once we own Sun we’re going to increase the investment in SPARC,” he said. “We think designing our own chips is very, very important. Even Apple is designing its own chips these days. Right now, SPARC chips do some things better than Intel chips and vice-versa. For example, SPARC is much more energy efficient than Intel while delivering the same performance on a per socket basis. This is not just a green issue, it’s an economic issue. Today, database centers are paying as much for electricity to run their computers as they pay to buy their computers. SPARC machines are much less expensive to run than Intel machines….our primary reason for designing our own chips is to build computers with the very best performance, reliability and security available in the market. Some system features work much better if they are implemented in silicon rather than software. Once we own Sun, we’ll be able to plan and synchronize new features from silicon to software, just like IBM and the other big system suppliers. We want to work with Fujitsu to design advanced features into the SPARC microprocessor aimed at improving Oracle database performance. In my opinion, this will enable SPARC Solaris open-system mainframes and servers to challenge IBM’s dominance in the data center. Sun was very successful for a very long time selling computer systems based on the SPARC chip and the Solaris operating system. Now, with the added power of integrated Oracle software, we think they can be again.”

Oracle’s (ORCL) intentions for Sun’s (JAVA) hardware business come as great news for engineers worried they might lose their jobs as a result of Oracle’s surprise acquisition of the company. Bad news for rivals like Dell (DELL), Hewlett Packard (HPQ), and IBM (IBM), though. Having Oracle out there in the market peddling an integrated hardware and software solution is going to make their lives more difficult.

Tragically, that’s not the case.

The Metrolink engineer responsible for the worst U.S. train crash in the last decade sent and received 45 text messages while helming his train the day of the deadly collision in California last month–including one just moments before running a red signal and crashing head-on into a freight train. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the last message the engineer received was at 4:21:03, more than a minute before the accident. The last one he sent was at 4:22:01, just 22 seconds before the trains, traveling at some 40 miles an hour, collided.

Rail experts were aghast at the news. “For me, it just gives me heart palpitations thinking about it,” said Tim Smith, California chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. “The last thing you want to be doing is something that takes your eyes off the road.”