Heads in the clouds: Amazon sues former cloud employee for taking a job at Google

Amazon is suing a former Amazon Web Services strategic partnerships manager, Zoltan Szabadi, because he took a job at Google Cloud Platform, which the company says violates the terms of a non-compete agreement he signed when he joined Amazon, reports Geek Wire.

The law suit is the latest battle in the war for the cloud, which sees Amazon and Google going head to head for market share.

According to Geek Wire, the suit is the first test of new employment standards that have recently been brought into the tech industry by large companies, such as Amazon, which require new employees to sign off on agreements that restrict their activities if they leave.

According to the suit, when Szabadi took the job at Google he agreed not to solicit business from customers that he worked with at Amazon for six months and not to recruit employees from Amazon for the same time period.

But Amazon says Google’s restrictions on Szabadi are in conflict with the employment agreement he made when he joined Amazon.

Amazon is seeking an injunction preventing Szabadi “from engaging in any activities that directly or indirectly support any aspect of Google’s cloud computing business with partners or resellers”.

“Szabadi was directly and integrally involved with the marketing of Amazon’s cloud computing business to its partners and resellers, and played a significant role in developing Amazon’s business strategy and direction in this area,” says Amazon.

“Szabadi was involved in developing, implementing and managing Amazon Web Services’ strategy for many of its partners, and was the first point of contact for most partners who were considering working with Amazon.”