If Microsoft"s extended family of lawyers was thinking it could now kick back and anticipate a kind of extended Spring Break for the rest of this Bush administration, the pre-Xmas filing by British phone company Sendo could yet be the cause of a few unexpected late nights.
Sendo"s 27-page filing in a Texas court - disclosed here for the first time - is a rich litany of double dealing, betrayal and larceny - if the dramatic (and at times apoplectic) allegations can be believed. Until November, Sendo was Microsoft"s flagship phone OEM. It then announced that its four-times-delayed Z100 Stinger phone would be canned, and threw its lot in with Nokia, terminating the Microsoft agreement.
Formally, Sendo is throwing the book at Microsoft. The handset manufacturer, created in 1999 with some of the best Philips and Motorola talent, was to be Microsoft"s "go to market partner" for the Stinger smartphone platform, and even received an equity investment from Redmond, and it"s now very, very angry. The claim alleges - are you ready to start counting? - misappropriation of trade secrets, common law misappropriation, conversion, unfair competition, fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, two counts of negligent misrepresentation, two counts of breach of contract, fraudulent inducement and tortious interference