CHICAGO (CN) - Google cheated a partner of a $950 million business opportunity after LimitNone helped Google create its "gMove" tool to integrate email, a calendar and contacts onto its Google Apps business suite, LimitNone claims in Cook County Court.
LimitNone, based in Palatine, Ill., claims it enabled Google to overcome compatibility problems in creating a "migration tool" for Microsoft Outlook users. It claims that after Google promised that it would not create a competing product, LimitNone worked with Google to create gMove, which Google then advertised and sold for $19.
LimitNone claims the two companies continued to work on the product, and Google asked LimitNone to demonstrate it to advertisers, including Procter & Gamble, Morgan Stanley, Intel and Orbitz.
Seeing a potential market of 50 million Google Apps users, Google replaced gMove with a virtually identical Google Email Uploader, depriving LimitNone of a $950 million business opportunity, the complaint states. The figure was reached by multiplying $19 by 50 million users.
LimitNone claims that Google's senior executive Scott McMullan "stated to LimitNone that a 50 million user opportunity was 'just too big to come from someone else' and that 'this is how Google operates.'"
LimitNone demands damages for misappropriation of trade secrets and deceptive business practices. LimitNone's sole members are Ray Glassmann and Jonathan Sapir, software developers and consultants.
They are represented by David Rammelt with Kelley Drye & Warren.
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