“The device’s success is a nagging reminder for Microsoft executives of how the company’s own efforts to compete in the mobile business have fallen short in recent years,” Wingfield reports. “What is especially painful is that many of Microsoft’s own employees are nuts for the device.”
“The perils of being an iPhone user at Microsoft were on display last September,” Wingfield reports. “At an all- company meeting in a Seattle sports stadium, one hapless employee used his iPhone to snap photos of Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer. Mr. Ballmer snatched the iPhone out of the employee’s hands, placed it on the ground and pretended to stomp on it in front of thousands of Microsoft workers, according to people present.”
“Despite Mr. Ballmer’s theatrics, iPhone users are in plain sight at Microsoft. At the sprawling campus here in a Seattle suburb, workers peck away on their iPhone touch-screens in conference rooms, cafeterias and lobbies,” Wingfield reports. “Nearly 10,000 iPhone users were accessing the Microsoft employee email system last year, say two people who heard the estimates from senior Microsoft executives. “
Wingfield reports, “Some Microsoft workers take pains to hide their iPhones. While rank-and-file workers tend to use the iPhone openly around peers, some conceal them within sight of more senior executives. One Microsoft worker said he knows several colleagues who try to disguise their iPhones with cases that make them look more like generic handsets.”
MacDailyNews Take: For the rest of the Microsoft drones: Ultimate anti-theft case makes Apple iPods, iPhones look like Microsoft Zunes – July 16, 2007
Wingfield reports, “Microsoft isn’t uniformly opposed to employees using Apple products, in part because it makes some software and services for them. Apple’s Macintosh computers are common in the Microsoft group that makes the Mac version of its Office software. Still, Apple’s ascendancy in mobile phones has been tough to stomach.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: I like our strategy. I like it a lot. (So much so that I can’t even get my own employees to use Windows Mobile phones; they all use iPhones!)
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “James W.” and “Diegus” for the heads up.]
If Mel Brooks ever got introduced to Balmer he should consider making Balmer his next “hero”. The would be this biggest comedy ever.
Bloodbath…..
I take my company phone set it on call forward to my iPhone and put theirs away.
Clearly Microsoft is not dead, they have over 10,000 employees that know the answer!
Next- Balmer’s kid comes home with a MacBookPro under his arm, an iPod around his neck and he’s wearing an Applet-Shirt… chairs flying everywhere.
With respect to smart phones – naturally the iPhone is without a match. However once the internet-challenged iPad gets released, the HP Slate will vanquish the Flash-free iPad. People wish to access the entire web, and not just what Apple construes is appropriate.
Microsoft is clearly in permanent decline. If their employees had any sense of pride in their own company, and a sense of urgency to succeed, they would insist on “eating their own dog food,” to help make their own products better, even if those products are currently inferior. Instead, they covertly use iPhones (and iPods) and hide from the executives. They should be self-policing each other (as peers).
@HP Slate
There is nothing Flash can do that can’t be done using open standards. Real used to be the “de facto” means of delivering audio to the desktop and yet I haven’t seen a website using it for more than three years. Real died a death ages ago and Flash is headed down the same path but you’re too dumb, too ignorant and too mired in Luddite thinking to see what is plain to anyone with a modicum of intelligence and an eye for history.
=:~)
What would be even more interesting by comparison is how many Apple employees use windoze mobile
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“…J Allard, who helped create the Xbox game console and is chief experience officer for the entertainment and devices division.”
OK, I’m stumped, what the hell is a chief experience officer? Do they experience things and get paid for it? Or, are they in charge of everyone else’s experiences? Please WSJ employ some more subs! I know Uncle Rupert doesn’t like employing too many journalists but this is clearly a badly subbed story.
@ sandman
I’ve heard of a few. Mostly of the units are used to get a laugh from people at the campus. A few more for Engineering. It’s used to show the employees on “whats wrong with this POS Q&A;sessions”.
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LOLOLOLOLOL. This article is so utterly full of wrong. >.<
Comeon MDN, Microsoft is still searching for it’s soul. The real battle is between Apple and Google.
I take it that Job’s old friend is Bill Gates,
@BD
Same here!
“MacFanboiDailyNews Take: I like our strategy. I like it a lot. (So much so that I can’t even get my own employees to use Windows Mobile phones; they all use iPhones!)”
Wikipedia lists MS headcount at 93,000- not 10,000 who accessed the MS in-house system. That would put usage at about 10-11%.
@ Sandman
For a very long time the mobile checkout devices used in Apple stores were Windows Mobile devices. So you were buying your Mac, iPod, iPhone on a Windows device,
Funny how MDN forgets how many of those devices Apple- not Apple employees- purchased.
@Progressive Agent Provocateur,
That’s iPhones accessing Microsoft’s corporate mail. How many more MS employees have iPhones purely for personal use?Regardless, do you think 10% of Apple employees have Windows Mobile devices? Somehow I doubt it.
In my company, very large by our population, 4,5 million we just swap SIM cards from our ordinary company phones and get our private email on iPhones. But it’s also possible to get a HTC “something” and get company email on iPhones as the company smartphones have different SIM cards.
However, being loyal to my company, I can’t expose the company with the risk of my iPhone getting in the wrong hands because we still use Explorer 6 which isn’t compatible with @me. So until we get Win7 I will not expose my company with the risk potential of loosing my iPhone. As the company never ever is going Mac, I’m in the absurd situation that I look forward to Win7!
How many folks are still working in the Mac Business Unit (MacBU) at Microsoft? “Phone+-tically – Mac-Be-You
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Business_Unit
There are iPhones all over Microsoft. And no one hides them, folks. Don’t get all excited about it.
Such heresy from paid employees cannot be tolerated. Time to start an Inquisition…
In that interview, Mr Ballmer did not give an answer as to how he will compete against the iPhone. He just mentions the number of phones sold by MS at that time, versus zero iPhones sold when iPhone was not yet released.
No answer, no strategy to like it a lot.
Fast forward three years….., no answer or strategy to be seen.
Regardless, Ballmer is still ordering mandatory rectal probing.
“Mr. Ballmer snatched the iPhone out of the employee’s hands, placed it on the ground and pretended to stomp on it in front of thousands of Microsoft workers, according to people present.”
Ga Ga Goo Goo Monkey Boy. Aww. Baby has a tantrum. Put down that chair!
Some employees have two phones.