A former executive of US software giant Microsoft, whose defection to Google set off a legal battle said at a court hearing on Tuesday that an expletive-filled tirade from the Chairman of Microsoft, Bill Gates, was a low point before he decided to leave.

Chairman Bill Gates (L), CFO John Connors (C) and CEO Steve Ballmer discuss Microsoft's dividend and stock buyback plans with employees in 2004

In testimony at the court hearing, Kai-Fu Lee, also said he had written a memo to another Microsoft executive saying he was "deeply disappointed at our incompetence in China - that we have wasted so many years in China with little to show for it."

Lee joined search company Google last July to head the company's expansion into China. He had worked at Microsoft since 1998, having setup a academic research lab in China and later working at Microsoft's headquarters on computer recognition of language, a critical problem in search technology.

Microsoft filed a lawsuit against Google and Lee, claiming that his work at Google would violate the terms of a non-compete agreement he signed as part of a Microsoft employment contract. Microsoft also said that Lee used insider information to get his job at Google.

Google denies Microsoft's allegations and has countersued.

Microsoft is seeking to restrict the work that Lee can do for Google until the lawsuit goes to trial in January.

Microsoft's lawyer Jeff Johnson, said in an opening statement that in approaching Google about a job, Lee sent an e-mail message stating, "I am currently the corporate vice president at Microsoft working on areas very related to Google."

Lawyers for Google told Judge Steven González that much of Lee's knowledge about the Chinese market came from his previous work experience at Apple Computer and other companies, and that Microsoft was exaggerating the extent of Lee's work for Microsoft on China.

In his testimony, Lee recalled writing in an e-mail message while at Microsoft that he was embarrassed by the company's business practices and that people in the Chinese government joked about Microsoft's internal politics.

He testified that one of his lowest points at Microsoft was a conversation in which Bill Gates yelled at him and said in graphic language that the company had been done in by the Chinese people and its government.

Among other issues, he said, was a 2002 commitment by the chief executive of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer, to outsource $100 million in jobs to China. Within the last year, after it had become clear that the company was not meeting that goal, Lee said he was put in charge of outsourcing jobs to China.

Microsoft lawyer Johnson alleged that Lee, while still on Microsoft's payroll, had also made recommendations to Google about other people the company might want to hire.

John Keker, a lawyer for Google, claimed that recruiting was not a violation of the noncompete clause.

Background

With the air filled with obscenities, a raging Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer kicked furniture and said he would "kill" Google and "bury" its CEO when he learned an employee was leaving the company, according to documents filed last Friday in a lawsuit that reflects the bitter rivalry between the firms.

The account by the former employee, which Ballmer says is a "gross exaggeration," was submitted by Google in Seattle's King County Superior Court in a case brought by Microsoft against former employee Kai-Fu Lee who was leaving the software firm to head Google's operations in China.

Microsoft has alleged that Lee sent confidential documents about the company's China strategy to Google a month before he was hired. Microsoft says it needs to protect confidential information by enforcing an employment agreement signed by Lee, a former vice president there, before Google hired him in May.

Google says that all the Microsoft material that Lee relayed to the company had been made public previously. Google said it would respect the terms of the agreement and continued to maintain that Microsoft is using the lawsuit, filed in mid-July, to intimidate prospective employees.

support that claim, Google filed a sworn statement by a former engineer, Mark Lucovsky, detailing Ballmer's reaction when he told Ballmer in November 2004 that he was leaving Microsoft for Google.

"Ballmer said: 'Just tell me it's not Google,' " Lucovsky wrote.

"I told him it was Google."

"At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office. Mr. Ballmer then said: 'Fucking (Google Chief Executive) Eric Schmidt is a fucking pig. I'm going to fucking bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to fucking kill Google.' "

Eric Schmidt had previously headed the networking software company Novell that was eventually koncked off its pedestal by Microsoft's WindowsNT.

In a statement, Ballmer called Lucovsky's account of their conversation "a gross exaggeration of what actually took place."

Ballmer said the engineer's decision to leave was "disappointing, and I urged him strongly to change his mind. But his characterization of that meeting is not accurate."

Microsoft is seeking a preliminary injunction that prolongs, at least until a January 9th trial, an order it won in late July temporarily restraining Google from having Lee perform any work that might violate the agreement.