Court Halts Former Microsoft Executive's Plans To Work For Salesforce.com

A Washington state judge has issued a temporary restraining order preventing Matt Miszewski, previously general manager of Microsoft's government division, from moving to Salesforce.com, according to a story on the CRMbuyer Website.

Miszewski left Microsoft last month and on Jan. 18 Salesforce announced it had hired him as senior vice president, Global Public Sector, where he was slated to lead the company's cloud-computing public sector initiatives.

But Microsoft has fought Salesforce's hiring of Miszewski arguing that it violates confidentiality and non-competition agreements he signed when he joined Microsoft in 2007, according to a statement from David Howard, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel for litigation at Microsoft.

"This case involves an employee with knowledge of Microsoft's sensitive customer and competitive information going to work for Salesforce.com, a direct competitor, in a job that is focused on the same solutions and customers," Howard said.

A hearing on whether to issue a more permanent injunction in the case is scheduled for Feb. 10.

Earlier this month Microsoft began offering its Dynamics CRM Online 2011 application on a global basis. That product competes head-to-head with Salesforce's cloud-based CRM application.