7 Companies Microsoft ex-Windows Chief Isn't Allowed to Join
Back in November of last year, Microsoft announced that its Windows and Windows Live President, Steven Sinofsky, would be leaving the company. Sinofsky was at the helm of Office products and lead the teams on the development of Windows 7 and 8 products. To say he had a pretty big role at Microsoft would be an understatement. In December, Sinofsky announced that he would be returning to Harvard Business School for a teaching position in the spring of 2013. Sinofsky, a 23-year vet at Redmond, no doubt has a lot to teach students at Harvard Business School, but will he stay? According to his Twitter profile, he's currently on sabbatical, and recent reports suggest Sinofsky's options for employment will open up considerably come December.
Mashable points to an SEC filing from Microsoft that lists the seven companies named in Sinofsky's non-compete agreement. According to the filing, under the terms of his departure, Sinofsky is not allowed to accept 'direct or indirect employment' with Amazon, Apple, EMC, Google, Facebook, Oracle, or VMware.
Not exactly surprising that Microsoft would want to prevent a former employee that spent nearly a quarter century at the company from working for the competition. More interesting, though, is what Sinofsky will do once the non-compete expires. According to the filing, that will happen on December 31 of this year. Where will Sinofsky be in 2014?
Amazon's cloud-based Web Services platform could absolutely be in competition with Microsoft, especially as MS is starting to move some of their resources in that direction. I do agree that Facebook seems to be an odd one out on that list but they are a massive company money and technology wise and have the resources to move into other markets if they see an opportunity.
There are non-compete clauses that are listed in their contracts. This is something that the employees sign and and are bound by contract law to live by until the specified end of contract.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-compete_clause
Yep. He was also behind the improvements made in Windows7...
Far too many laws to support greedy corporations.
It's called contract law. When he started for working for Microsoft, which employed him and paid him well for years, he willingly signed a piece of paper that said that he could not immediately go to work for a directly competing company - at least, one of the listed ones - for a specified period of time. As in, he couldn't jump ship, immediately sign on to a competing company, and say "Ok, guys, here is what my previous employer was doing, and here is how we undermine their confidential plans and strategies."
When reading that, focus on the "willingly signed" part. In this case, the "land of the free" is saying "If you sign a legal contract saying you will not do X after you quit, you can't legally do X." I have to ask you, seriously... Is that so terrible and unfair?