Morgan Stanley's not alone with these email problems

I was poking around on the web tonight and I found the notice the Burst.com had settled with Microsoft for $60M plus other business agreements.

Burst was one of the first Microsoft competitors to sue Microsoft after Microsoft settled with the U.S. government a few years back. So why mention this here?

Well, last November, Burst filed papers with the court alleging the Microsoft had destroyed -- or failed to produce -- emails that had been properly requested. As I understand it, once Burst's lawyers lined up the produced emails, gaps emerged. Microsoft strongly disputed these charges.

The moral, though, is that this was an expensive exercise, and, again, distracting from the substance of the case. And this is one that might not get as much attention as the Morgan Stanley issue, but it just shows how common these accusations can be.