Microsoft pulls China blog site amid code-theft charges
news.cnet.com
news.cnet.com
a> MS does not review the work of their subcontractors, or
b> whomever reviewed the new site was not familiar with their major competitor in the region.
Does either seem very likely?
Lots of things can end up being popular on a mostly regional basis. I'm sure there are many sites that are only popular to a specific locale that you've never heard of.
As an example, do you think it would have seen the light of day if Twitter, not Plurk, was involved?
Whenever something like this happens, it's a sign that the people who could have stopped it were completely unaware of what was happening. I'm sure the final work product was reviewed and approved by one or more people, who likely don't live in holes.
Microsoft knows better than to try something like this deliberately. They're big enough and do enough that something like this was bound to happen eventually. I think they handled it well, and may be more circumspect going forward.
When you contract a third party vendor you give them a lot of trust including access to your resources and code. They sign on the dotted line saying they would follow Microsoft's policy for the same which is pretty strict and doesn't even allow the devs to look at 3rd party code.
Whether it was 'unique' or not, the UI delivered was nearly identical to Plurk's and was obviously a copy.
The idea that MS is not responsible because a third party created this is absurd; a company is responsible for what you purchase and release under their own name. Whomever was responsible for commissioning , accepting or supervising this project obviously should have been aware of existing sites. Clearly, someone failed in a supervisory role here.