 Microsoft-approved |
Like many large companies, Microsoft has been trimming costs in places in response to the global economic downturn…It also means scaling back perks. On the chopping block? Apple iPhone, RIM BlackBerry and Palm Pre service plans.
Regardless if the iPhone or BlackBerry is used for work purposes, Microsoft says if an employee wants to use one, it’s on his or her own dime, according to Business Insider.
The only phones Microsoft will pay for? Windows Mobile-powered smartphones, naturally.
Many companies do not reimburse employees for personal mobile devices, but that wasn’t the case at Microsoft (until now)…But questions remain about the move, such as:
If it didn’t affect that many staffers, why make the move at all? Just how much money is Microsoft saving if employees pay for the phones?
Aren’t data plans fairly similar in price?
If Windows Mobile is deemed inferior to the competition, what’s the use? Why frustrate employees?
The policy…poses less a financial question than a cultural one: if Microsoft employees don’t naturally gravitate toward in-house devices (say, the way Google employees do), isn’t that indicative that more work must be done in the mobile department?
Would Microsoft make a decision like this for petty reasons?.
Clottenhamr – features is one thing. Ones that actually work on a Windows Immobile phone is completely another. Accessing the internet is one thing but actually getting pages to display corrrectly or able to make associated links in another. Even our IT department bemoans the dreadful selection of Windows Immobile phones available through our IP. My opinion of these phones is mild compared to theirs.
I have Telus HTC Touch Pro has some of the most absurd feature imaginable. The unchangeable response to email is “reply all”. The phone screen blacks out the instant your call connects, even while accessing voicemail where the keyboard is retrieved by push the on button> phone button>and finally the keyboard button, where the voice mail system says”are you still there?” or times out. More than 10 previos numbers in the call cache locks the phone up for about six to ten seconds after the call and I could go on. There are dozens on staff who have refused to use the company provided windows immobile phone and have bought their own iPhones and rave to the rest of us daily as we struggle with our windows garbage.
To paraphrase “The Onion”
“It remains to be seen if the iPhone will catch on in the business world where people use phones for actual work and not just dikking around.”
MicroSoft, building the love. One telephone at a time.
This is not news. This is standard practice in a lot places.
This may be standard practice in many companies, like GM for example, and look where that got them. In the 1970s a GM manager would be fired for buying a Japanese car, but at Toyota the company BOUGHT their managers American cars to drive. Microsoft’s move is the height of myopia — and everyone loves to rag on Apple’s “reality distortion field”. Hah! Watch it, Mr. Balmer. I don’t think there’s any TARP money left for you.
its a nice idea,main thing is they should respect microsoft rules, its not a good idea to see the competitors for rocking in thier company too
Is it just me or is Steve Ballmer really just Dick Cheney’s long lost brother?
Sounds a little familiar… There used to be lots of superior imports in the GM company parking lot… now there’s weeds.
“If Windows Mobile is deemed inferior to the competition, what’s the use? Why frustrate employees?”
I guess they could quit their job and pick one of those temp, part time, summer gigs, that O’Mama is creating at a $1 million a pop…