Oops, someone at an Arizona computer recycling firm is about to get eaten alive by Microsoft, and probably someone at Microsoft will likely get a verbal beating by Satya Nadella.
You see, good ole Microsoft hired a recycling company to throw away its stuff. Within the garbage are over 70,000 copies of Office 2010, and guess what? Employees from the recycling firm wanted to make a little bit of extra cash on the side, so they sold these copies of Office 2010 on the black market.
The company is called Global Electronics Recycling, and Microsoft is suing them and not the employees themselves. Smart move because there is no way the software giant could have recovered the millions it lost through a bunch of guys who probably sold the Office licenses for half price or less.
These employees are going to fall into a world of pain and end up losing their jobs. However, Global Electronics Recycling could lose its contract with Microsoft, which could millions of dollars lost in the long run.
Now, while the recycling firm should have been more careful, we also have to throw the blame at Microsoft for putting so much trust in another company to make sure all its unwanted garbage is destroyed, especially when they are important garbage.
Bad decisions on both ends, but we do not expect this lawsuit to amount to anything much. Both companies will work it out and retain their business relationship going forward.
As for the folks who purchased the stolen copies of Office 2010, well, Microsoft will have to allow them to keep their copies. It would be terrible to shut down 70,000 Office 2010 copies since it wasn’t the fault of the buyers.
Force the recycling firm to cover the losses and everything should be okay after that.
Source: The Register.
