Microsoft Ex-Employee Pleads Guilty To Theft
from the what's-an-Xbox-admin-need-with-so-much-SQL? dept
As Microsoft continues to crack down on internal employees who were reselling software they got internally for free, they've had one plead guilty to the thefts. This is at least the third such employee that we've mentioned here caught for stealing many "millions" of dollars worth of software. In this case, the person was an administrative assistant in the Xbox group - and ordered $6 million worth of MS SQL and resold it. Of course, they don't say how much it was actually sold for. However, you have to wonder why an admin assistant ordering $6 million worth of MS SQL didn't trigger some sort of alarm.
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MS Store
Of course, you don't really have to go that far since MS will sell you all of it's business products for $99. Just go here:
http://members.microsoft.com/partner/salesmarketing/partnermarket/actionpack/actionpackus.aspx
U se code MHQ062
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He Did
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Re: He Did
Not at the time it didn't. She only got caught after MS realized they were having a problem, and went back and tracked her down.
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Re: He Did
Chris.
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Re: He Did
At my major brand name consumer electronics company I work at, there is also an employee website and they specifically state that they assume you will buy products for "family and friends". Purchases are limited by the simple fact that only "overstocked" items are offered, so the offerings change almostly weekly. Could I buy something there every month and eBay it. Sure. If I were found out I am sure they would change the policy and repremand or fire me, but I don't see it becoming an external issue if I abused it.
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No Subject Given
And this theft didn't occur through the employee store. While the software available there is heavily discounted (about $10 per CD in the package,) there's also an annual limit ($250 per year, last I heard) on how much one can purchase at the discounted price.
The other publicized prosecutions for theft involved managers or administrative assistants misusing the internal ordering system by which one MS group procures MS software produced by another group. In one case, the stolen copies were supposed to have been for promotional distribution, and in the other the stolen copies were supposed to have been used by product development groups.
So it wouldn't necessarily have triggered alarms that a group admin ordered a couple dozen copies of SQL Server, if her group could plausibly have had a use for them (though it probably should have if said admin was doing so every month or two.) One wouldn't spot this sort of thing unless one went looking for it and discovered that authorizations had been forged or an audit revealed that a large number of product discs were missing. The managers and admins who are being caught, are people who had legitimate reason to order what they were ordering.
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