In the mid-to-late 1980’s, WordPerfect was the leading word processor for PCs, but it began to face a challenge from a graphical word processor called Microsoft Word.<\/p>\n
Jeff Raikes was in charge of Word, and he was also on good terms with his counterpart at WordPerfect, W. E. “Pete” Peterson. Pete gave Jeff the names and birthdays of his children, and Jeff sent each of Pete’s kids a teasing Microsoft-related present on their birthday. He sent one of the kids a Windows programming book because WordPerfect stuck with MS-DOS instead of porting to Windows. He sent another a Microsoft Australia-branded koala bear doll because PC Word was the leading word processor in Australia.<\/p>\n
There was no animosity here. This was all done with permission, and Pete and Jeff both got a kick out of it. Pete put up with it because he was also recruiting Jeff to leave Microsoft and join WPCorp. (Said attempts were evidently unsuccessful.)<\/p>\n