
Microsoft to employees: 'everybody gets a Windows Phone 7' - aaronbrethorst
http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/21/microsoft-to-employees-everybody-gets-a-windows-phone-7/
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Timmy_C
I guess this guarantees that the install base will be > 503.

As someone who lives in Seattle and knows a lot of people at Microsoft it'll
be interesting to see if they give up their iPhones so easily.

~~~
Andys
Its quite common where I work (Australia) for people to carry two phones: a
work-supplied phone (often a Blackberry or cheap Nokia) and a personal phone
(often an iPhone).

~~~
megablast
I would not say that was common at all. Working in several large offices, I
have never seen this. I have seen people diverting their home/office number to
the other device. I am the only person I know who carries around more than one
phone, and people to look at me weird.

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memoryfault
Question: You are the largest software maker in the world. How do you get a
good developer base for your new phone OS coming out?

Answer: Give every employee said phone.

~~~
megablast
Question: You have just suffered the embarrasement of a incredibly low uptake
for a phone (the kin), how do you ensure to get at least 90,000 users straight
away?

Answer: Give every employee said phone.

If they want more developers, they are better of offering competitions to
attract developers. They are already talking to popular iphone developers
apparently.

Why do so many Microsoft tactics (paying for bing users, approaching iphone
developers, giving away phones) seem so desperate and tacky?

~~~
altano
What an interesting lens you see the world through. Was it desperate and tacky
when Apple gave all their employees free iPhones, or was that a magical
maneuver by Steve Jobs?

Maybe the world is somewhere in between. Maybe it's a good thing for an
employer to do: makes employees happy, gets a large user and developer base
right out the gate, employees are more likely to evangelize a product and give
it a shot than the average consumer, etc.

~~~
theBobMcCormick
It's the reality distortion field? :-)

It'd be tacky if Microsoft was requiring or even pressuring employees to _buy_
Windows 7 phones. Giving them away seems like a pretty nice perk for
employess, and a good opportunity for MS to "eat their own dog food". If every
employee has one, campus gossip should give you a pretty good idea what stuff
users really like and what stuff they don't.

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ovi256
I remember, many years back, when Microsoft gave some nice gadget to their
employees. I was green with envy, for I was not a Microsoftie.

I remember again, some time back, when Google gave free phones to their
employees. I was green with envy, for I was not a Googler.

Now, Microsoft is giving free Windows 7 phones to Microsofties. I couldn't
care less.

~~~
houseabsolute
You've grown beyond envy! Congrats!

The Windows 7 phone so far looks like something that might be able to do well
in the market. As an Android and iPhone user, I can say it definitely has more
visual appeal than the former. It also appears to run more smoothly and have a
better media experience. Now, is it going to be as useful overall? That
remains to be seen. Getting Trident's HTML5 support to a better place than it
is now is going to be a critical step on that path.

~~~
jf
IE 9 will eventually run on the phone, just not at launch.

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eob
Just adopt WebKit already. You would all get infinity karma points from the
web development community.

~~~
sjs
As long as IE can perform well and implements modern features expected of
mobile browsers I'm all for the competition. If we can say anything definitive
about browsers it's that competition and multiple popular implementations is a
good thing.

I like WebKit as much as the next guy and the idea of deploying to a single
rendering engine (on mobile) is nice. The ecosystem is more important though.

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icefox
Guess the question is "why?" Is Microsoft trying to re-invent themselves as a
phone company? Shouldn't they make sure the phone isn't a flop before doing
something like this? Does apple give out iphones? I know Nokia and RIM do
(they are phone companies). Giving out 90,000 phones is a chunk of change even
for Microsoft. Does MS currently give out phones to everyone? If so then
switching to MS phones makes sense.

~~~
honopu
You're kidding, right?

I think every apple employee including store employees were given the first
iphone.

~~~
icefox
I also _think_ every Apple employee was given phones, but I am not sure, where
I have worked for Nokia and currently work for RIM so I _know_ that they give
phones to their employees. I would rather frame it as a question than say it
as a truth.

~~~
sandipc
[http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/28/jobs-pulls-an-
oprah-12m-i...](http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/28/jobs-pulls-an-oprah-12m-in-
iphones-for-all-apple-employees/)

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csomar
Good move. With 90K users, Microsoft can test units as well as the Operating
System itself. And if WM7 is good, they'll start developing for it (since the
learning curve is short, now, that you can use .Net for Mobile)

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jsz0
This should help bolster their third party app selection a bit. Lots of MS
folks will be writing apps.

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joshu
How googly of them.

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berntb
The most interesting thing with this article and the discussion is the
up/down-voting. Here is a (half joking) idea for a startup:

Automatic "correct" voting from employees on discussion web sites.

Two plugins.

In the first, an administrator marks a comment and say +/- 10, or something
similar.

The second plugin is run by employees. When the employee opens a page with
discussion, it checks if there are votes to be done and automatically votes.
(Optionally, if the employee follows the web site, it could open a page
automatically.)

Who voted are (optionally) kept secret from the company management, in the
interest of employee integrity.

~~~
borisk
There are at least a couple well known lobby groups who have implemented a
similar voting mechanism.

~~~
berntb
Sigh...

Thanks for info -- but please don't make me _more_ cynical. :-)

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keltex
My friend at Microsoft is really going to be bummed. He loves his iPhone.

This isn't a joke either. I saw him about 6 months ago and he was raving about
the thing. He said, "Microsoft could never have made this."

~~~
endtime
No one's stopping him using his iPhone - he'll just have a free WP7 phone too.

