Science & Technology World

Microsoft has indefinitely suspended its Chinese microblogging
service MSN Juku after admitting that it "copied" code used to create
the site. A vendor contracted to work for the software giant was
caught lifting code from a rival Canadian start-up, Plurk. According
to Plurk as much as 80 % of the basecode was "stolen directly".
Microsoft apologised to Plurk, saying "we are obviously very
disappointed but we assume responsibility for this situation".
Microsoft China launched Juku in November. Bloggers and Taiwanese
users of rival service Plurk first alerted the Canadian firm to the
fact that a large amount of the base code appeared to have been
stolen. Plurk responded: "We were shocked and outraged when we saw
with our own eyes the cosmetic similarities Microsoft's new offering
had with Plurk....Microsoft China's offering ripped off our service."
'Daylight robbery' It was not just the look and feel of the site, that
was the same. "On closer inspection we found that much of the
codebase and data structures... are identical snapshots of our code.
That it is Microsoft doing the copying in broad daylight makes it
even more incredulous," Plurk said. Microsoft was quick to issue an
apology. "The vendor has now acknowledged that a portion of the code
they provided was indeed copied," it said in a statement. "We are a
company that respects intellectual property and it was never our
intent to have a site that was not respectful of the work that
others in the industry have done," it said. "We will be reaching out
to them [Plurk] directly to explain what happened and the steps we
have taken to resolve the situation," it added.