Dubbed by our own Brownlee as “one of the greatest fuck ups in hardware history“, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 failures — the storied “Red Ring of Death” — has cost the company a billion dollars in repair expenses and quite possibly one talented executive. Reporter Dean Takahashi wrote a fantastic investigate piece chronicling the failure — and now his prime source, Robert Delaware, is being fired (fair enough) and sued (harsh!).
From Takahashi, writing for VentureBeat:
Delaware, a 29-year-old Seattle resident, expects to face civil charges from his former employer VMC (which tests games for Microsoft) and Microsoft as well. He will likely have to hire a lawyer. Microsoft spokesman David Dennis said the company does not talk about personnel issues.
“I don’t regret it,” he said in a phone call on Thursday. “I’ll fight it. If they want to come after me, bring it on.”
A commenter on VB fairly sums up my feelings on the matter, provided Delaware’s information is accurate:
True that violation of an NDA is obvious grounds for termination, but it should be equally important to note that when someone puts their livelihood on the line to become a whistle blower they automatically deserve a fair amount of credibility. And, lets be clear, while there is a lot of people who will report similar things anonymously, it takes a lot of guts to put your name and reputation on the line, people like this should be commended.
Microsoft fires game test contractor who talked to VentureBeat [VentureBeat.com]
Image: Andrew Burgess
Update:
Suing the guy seems like all kinds of bad news. Any enterprising attorney for this gentleman is going to start putting a lot of very embarrassing (for MS) information out there. Firing him is fair, he did violate their NDA and his terms of employment, but suing him is just a big dumb mess.
I reported this on Gamervision recently. I was sort of appalled that all the comments seemed to be universally AGAINST Delaware for breaking a non-disclosure agreement. It wasn’t really the reaction I would have anticipated about a guy stepping up to bat when the rest of Microsoft wouldn’t.
who is the guy in the picture?
That’s Steve Ballmer, dude.
Brains! Brains! Brains! Brains!
@4 That’s Mr. Ballmer to you.
Who should be credited for the Svengali-Ballmer picture?
cheers
#6 Darth Ballmer?
Ha! That’s an awesome picture. I used to work at MS’s Executive Briefing Center and Mr. Ballmer is the only person I’ve ever been afraid of.