Recent developments such as the one time dividend disbursement in 2004
and the recent law suits against Kai-Fu Lee suggest that it is
plausible.
In the case of Mr. Lee, Microsoft feels that he was privy to their
China strategy and may use that to compete with Microsoft. Is their
China strategy so fungible that it can be implemented by any other
company? Also, doesn't their vision/strategy take into consideration
their own internal capabilities and partners? Another reason that is
being floated is that Microsoft wants to use this case to prevent
further defections. It may be too late for that. If Google has cornered
all the action and attention on the innovation agenda, they will
continue to attract the best talent -- law suit or not. Google,
meanwhile, seems to be focused on building their consumer, developer
and complementor networks.