He added that the engagement manager repeatedly spoke of escalating the matter to an officer of the logistics company while insisting that she was merely looking for his division to be in compliance with its software licenses -- which it already is, he said.

Revenue recovery

According to Juan Fernando Rivera, worldwide director of Microsoft's SAM program, part of the compensation received by the engagement managers is based on the revenue they recover for unpaid licenses on software that customers have been using.

"It's not like a police officer having a quota of tickets that they have to write in a month," Rivera said this month. But, he added, "we set a goal, so to speak, of the number of engagements that we think could potentially be done in any particular marketplace."

Rivera said workers from SEI and other third parties that Microsoft hires to represent it under the SAM program are paid an hourly wage. He added that the workers also might receive incentives, but he had no information on that subject. Microsoft's regional subsidiaries are responsible for determining the compensation packages, Rivera said.