Google cheated a partner of a $950 million business opportunity afterLimitNone helped Google create its "gMove" tool to integrate email, acalendar and contacts onto its Google Apps business suite, LimitNoneclaims in Cook County Court.
LimitNone, based in Palatine,Ill., claims it enabled Google to overcome compatibility problems increating a "migration tool" for Microsoft Outlook users. It claims thatafter Google promised that it would not create a competing product,LimitNone worked with Google to create gMove, which Google thenadvertised and sold for $19.
LimitNone claims the twocompanies continued to work on the product, and Google asked LimitNoneto demonstrate it to advertisers, including Procter & Gamble,Morgan Stanley, Intel and Orbitz.
Seeing a potential marketof 50 million Google Apps users, Google replaced gMove with a virtuallyidentical Google Email Uploader, depriving LimitNone of a $950 millionbusiness opportunity, the complaint states. The figure was reached bymultiplying $19 by 50 million users.
LimitNone claims thatGoogle's senior executive Scott McMullan "stated to LimitNone that a 50million user opportunity was 'just too big to come from someone else'and that 'this is how Google operates.'"
LimitNone demandsdamages for misappropriation of trade secrets and deceptive businesspractices. LimitNone's sole members are Ray Glassmann and JonathanSapir, software developers and consultants.
They are represented by David Rammelt with Kelley Drye & Warren.