internet - "Microsoft just wasn't getting it"

It started off as a labor conflict when Microsoft employee Kai-Fu Lee decided to joint Google, ignoring non-competition clauses in his contract. But a hearing at a US-court has developed into a major debate on Microsoft's failure to enter the Chinese market.
In the Seattle Times:

Microsoft had become a joke to the Chinese government, he said, and morale at its China operation was low while employee turnover was high. "Microsoft just wasn't getting it," he said.

The question on how Microsoft ever would make money on the Chinese market was asked more than once by observers, but the question was raised temperature also inside the company. Lee expressed more than once his concern "at our incompetence in China".

His lawyer displayed in court a 2003 e-mail Lee wrote to Chairman Bill Gates and Chief Executive Steve Ballmer saying he was "deeply disappointed at our incompetence in China." Lee said things got worse when Gates yelled at him, using what Lee said was "the F-word" to say the Chinese people and their government had abused Microsoft.

Microsoft denies its chairman has made those comments. President Hu Jintao would have visited Gates, until his state-visit was cancelled because of the aftermath of the hurricane Katrina.
The case will continue.