Milestone raiding Microsoft

Once is a happening, twice is a coincidence. How long until we see a trend? A couple weeks back, Milestone announced it had grabbed Hans Joergen Skovgaard as head of product development. Hans most recently was at Microsoft with responsibility for the product development of Dynamics AX Production and Logistics and had a staff of 120 under him. Of course, I have no idea what Dynamics AX Production is or means, but Microsoft, that I've heard of. Now, today, the company says they've landed Jesper Balser to join the board of directors. Who's Jesper? Well, most recently he was head of global strategy for Microsoft Business Solutions, having founded Navision in 1985 and then sold it to Microsoft for $1.55 billion in 2002 (well, actually, he took it public and then Microsoft bought it, but, either way, I'm sure Jesper did okay). Now, with a little spare time on his hands, he'll "add further strategic competence with an eye towards the [Milestone's] continued international expansion."

"It is very positive that Jesper Balser joins the Milestone Board of Directors. Over the years we have built up an international sales and distribution channel, and our expansion continues – the latest initiative being this year’s new subsidiaries in Australia and Spain,” comments Lars Thinggaard, President & CEO, Milestone Systems. “Jesper Balser has great experience with developing global business channels for software, and we are pleased to gain from that expertise.”

So, maybe they're not raiding Microsoft, exactly, but if the next guy they hire is trading in a Microsoft badge, I'm going to start to get suspicious. Obviously, Microsoft knows a little something about building a giant software company, which is what Milestone would like to do, so it makes sense that Milestone would pry away a couple of their top execs. Isn't Microsoft, like, evil or something, though? (Hey, wait a second, did my Apple iBook just type that for me? I don't remember typing anything about Microsoft being evil. Can I get tech support in here, please!)