Did Anyone Really Think Google Wouldn't Build An Outlook-To-Gmail Migration Tool?
from the deep-sea-fishing dept
As Google's Gmail product has grown, it should come as absolutely no surprise that the company would offer up a tool to migrate users of Microsoft Outlook/Exchange over to Gmail. However, it appears to have come as a surprise to a small startup that offered similar tools in partnership with Google. That company has now sued Google claiming trade secrets were taken. From the details in the article, it appears that Google partnered with this small company that had developed such software as a rapid way of offering such functionality. Then, while all that was happening, it was developing its own such tools. This shouldn't be a surprise -- since migrating people over from Microsoft's email solutions is clearly a priority for Google, and it's no surprise that Google would want to have control over that technology.Yet this startup seems to believe that a simple partnership with Google means that it was guaranteed to always remain Google's partner and that Google would never build similar functionality in-house. If anything, this seems like sour grapes from a company that perhaps didn't put together a very good contract with Google and didn't recognize the obvious path for Google's own development efforts. Not surprisingly, perhaps, this lawsuit is being prosecuted by the same lawyer who recently was on the losing end of a different lawsuit against Google (the infamous "American Blinds" case, accusing Google of trademark infringement because competitors could buy ads on American Blinds' trademarks).
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Filed Under: email, migration tools, trade secrets
Companies: google
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Losings not so bad
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more double standards
Microsoft should sue Google for stealing their business practices.
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Re: more double standards
Can you point to an example of me trashing Microsoft for doing the same thing? I'm sure *some* people have said nasty things about Microsoft for doing exactly this, but I don't see what's so wrong here.
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Re: Re: more double standards
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Re: more double standards
2008: Don't be evil unless it's really necessary to get us where we need to be, show Wall Street that we're serious about meeting our financial targets, and enable us to deliver huge value to our customers in the process. Also remember that some animals (companies) are more equal than others.
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Re: Re: more double standards
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Re: Re: Re: more double standards
The 'because we can' is an allowable defense of actions, but it is not a defense when you claim to 'not be evil'.
caveat: the above information is from the suing parties lawyers and may not represent the reality, but if it does, Google stepped in it big time.
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Re:
Yep, they are going to start putting advertising in your car while you drive. Go to grocery store, get ads for products on the way. Going out for the night? Boy those ads will be fun!
They are sharing the profits with the gas and auto companies so very soon, it will be FREE to drive, just like it is to search the Internet. Awesome!
Freedom
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GeeMail...
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who is the small company
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Re: who is the small company
The company is "LimitNone" and the product is "gMove". For more details, make with the clicky you should have done in the first place.
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Google should have bought the rights to the software.
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free driving
advertisements for food products popping up HUD like on your windshield when pass participating grocery stores.
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are you people stupid?
I remember regularly backing up my outlook .pst files back in the late 90's and later importing everything into newer computers (back when I thought outlook was relevant). This is NOT a new feature and no matter how much you commies love the David vs Goliath analogies, google was simply adding features that have always existed to their FREE service for the benefit of their users. They've been adding obvious and non-unique features to gmail for years...after they make them work way better than previous iterations as seen in other companies inferior products.
As a matter of fact, I wish Google would hurry the hell up and "steal" more features from tiny companies...maybe something crazy like a "task list". Now that would be something fresh!
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