Microsoft announced some time ago that it was going to set up Microsoft stores, similar to Apple’s highly successful Apple store. But it seems that Microsoft doesn’t think that imitation is the only form of flattery. Apparently actually stealing Apple’s employees to run the new Microsoft stores is right up there too.

Apple employees who, for understandable reasons, wish to remain anonymous, have contacted the Apple news publication, The Loop, and revealed that several Apple store managers have been approached by Microsoft, with offers of higher salaries (to quote, “significant raises”), and even moving expenses, if they jump the Good Ship Apple, and move over to Microsoft.

Moreover, those Apple store managers who have moved over to a Microsoft store have then been contacting their top sales people at their former Apple store, in an effort to woo them away as well, offering them higher salaries too.

The Loop, which says of itself that it offers “thoughtful, well-balanced coverage” of things Apple, suggests that “The fact that Microsoft is poaching Apple’s retail employees is a smart move.”

We’re not so sure that we agree, unless they are using a definition of “s-m-a-r-t” that means “slimey.”