The Stuart Scott affair has gotten deeper. The latest wrinkle in the firing of Microsoft's CIO? A source close to Scott now claims that he was indeed on leave at the time of his dismissal — because of his sister's death. Scott was traveling to her funeral when the news broke. "Microsoft seems to have arranged the news for maximum embarrassment and pain for him — it's not so time sensitive that they can't take more than a month reviewing things, but they have to leak it when he's got a death in the family?" writes our tipster. If true, I worry for Microsoft's future. Top managers in Redmond really have time to plot such elaborate set-piece humiliations of straying executives? If they put this kind of energy into Web search, Google might actually be worried.

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