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Was Microsoft partner a victim of espionage?
Theft was no accident
"It might have looked like a common mugging. But this was no accident," said detective
The theft of top secret plans for Microsoft's latest mobile phone – stolen at Mobile World Conference in Barcelona last week – could have been the work of corporate espionage, it has been alleged.
Last week, hapless Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo was strolling down Barcelona’s most famous tourist boulevard, when a mugger suddenly emerged from the shadows and grabbed him in the Ramblas.
Later, Trujillo found he’d lost his handset. But this was no ordinary handset. It was one of HTC's latest models. Worse still, it contained top secret plans for a new Microsoft interface that may change the entire fabric of the industrial landscape. It could be very good for Telstra, but if it fell into the wrong hands, it could be used for evil.
Now security experts fear that the theft of this cutting edge tool of competitive advantage could be no accident. Some fear this may be an act of industrial espionage.
No way, says Mobile Telecoms analyst Tony Dennis, founder of 3GSMInsight. “Barcelona is a hot bed of crime during mobile world congress. The delegates wander down the Ramblas still wearing their mug-me exhibition passes and carry laptop cases advertising brands such as Dell.”
According to Nicolas Riegert, a Barcelona resident, the delegates wander down the Ramblas “like migrating Wildbeest descending on a tricky river crossing. There are all kinds of predators – whores, muggers, pickpockets – waiting for them at various hijack points. This man was just another casualty,” he said.
One security expert disagreed. “This was no accident,” he said. “This was the act of competitive intelligence. They knew what they were after. And yet they dressed it up to make it look like the work of street punks.”
Industrial espionage, AKA competitive intelligence, is a booming business. As companies try to find out what their competitors are up to, their tactics are becoming increasingly cut-throat. One scam involves bogus job interviews, in which the head hunted individual is encouraged to share company secrets, in order to impress a spy posing as a recruitment agent. Some competitive intelligence companies even set up bogus companies, which enter into a ‘channel partnership’ with their target, and began to report back confidential information.
One journalist turned competitive intelligence spy, identified only as Rick, said the theft of the mobile phone, to order, would not surprise him. “Competitive intelligence is big business. These contracts are worth millions to the companies involved. So they’ll go to any lengths to produce some results for their clients.”
Trujillio had been granted access to the new interface of Windows 6.5. the secret software that is most likely the new shell that Telstra will launch on Windows Mobile 6.1 devices.