Briefs

It wants a lot of money back from him

By INQUIRER staff: Tuesday 13 June 2006, 09:00

BIG BLUE took legal action against former employee and Fellow Rakesh Agrawal, who left IBM to join Microsoft in May as a Fellow in the fellowship of the Vole.

Agrawal is credited with being largely responsible for inventing "data mining" but IBM alleges he breached his contract and exercised options despite knowing that Microsoft is a competitor.

The action, filed in a New York district court, said Agrawal was employeed for 16 years and latterly held the position of IBM Fellow, which he held until he quit Big Blue on March 1st this year. IBM claimed it made efforts to retain Agrawal with stock options as recently as September 16th last year, but said a clause he signed meant he couldn't exercise such options if he joined a competitor within 12 months of leaving.

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