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Microsoft Barring Many of its Employees from Buying Apple Products with Company Funds?

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Apr 12, 2001
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ZDNet's Mary-Jo Foley reports that she has received an internal email regarding a new purchasing policy for Microsoft's Sales, Marketing, Services, IT, & Operations Group (SMSG).

According to the email, employees of that group at Microsoft are now prohibited from buying Apple products such as the Mac and iPad using company funds. From the email:
Within SMSG we are putting in place a new policy that says that Apple products (Mac & iPad) should not be purchased with company funds.

In the US we will be turning off the Apple products from the Zones Catalog next week, which is the standard purchasing mechanism for these products.

Outside of the US -- we will work with your finance and procurement teams to send the right message and put the right processes in place.
Click to expand...
The email from Alain Crozier, the chief financial officer of SMSG, claims that the current Apple product purchase levels are "low" but they recognize there will be a bit of transition work to implement it. The email was sent two days before the launch of the 3rd Generation iPad.

When asked for comment, Microsoft returned a "no comment" rather than a denial and Foley believes her source. Microsoft already prohibits the expensing of the iPhone or Blackberry, dating back to 2009. Microsoft has since provided Windows 7 phones to their employees as of 2010.

Microsoft still has a Mac development team known as the Macintosh Business Unit. This unit is responsible for the Mac Office products and was said at one time to be the largest 3rd party Mac software developer. This new Apple purchasing prohibition only seems limited to the SMSG group, according to the article. That group, however, encompasses 40,966 Microsoft employees worldwide. This represents about 45% of their their total workforce of 92,303 employees.

Article Link: Microsoft Barring Many of its Employees from Buying Apple Products with Company Funds?
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2012/03/21/microsoft-barring-employees-buying-apple/
You know things are bad when you have to force employees to not buy your competitors products with company money.
 
I'm excited to see how the Windows 8 ecosystem will turn out. Windows phone and tablet :D
 
[Edit: I managed to RTFA and miss the answer anyway]

So their Mac developers will have to buy their own Macs?
 
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Not surprising. Did anyone try to get 10.7 to join a Windows domain? What a nightmare. The enterprise costs to get macs up and running decently in an enterprise are staggering (having deployed the centrify suite and about to deploy extremeZ-IP).

edit: don't get me wrong; I know this is just M$ being petty. I'm just thinking that the MBU probably doesn't have the resources or interest to hear about AD issues with OS X and now the win server guys who have the know how to help out won't be able to get a box (depending on the internal corporate structure).
 
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Now this is funny enough, so what if the ms employees likes apple stuff, it is good, they are barring their rights essentially, not cool ms, either be good or follow the race:D
 
Why implement this policy at all if their Apple products purchases levels are "low"? Is Microsoft worried that Apple is gaining on the mindshare of their [Microsoft's] own employees?
 
When Microsoft's Alain Crozier was contacted for further clarifications on Microsofts barring of Apple purchases:

"No comment.




Sent from my iPad"





:D
 
It only makes sense.

Why would Microsoft want their own funds to go to purchase Apple products for their employees?

I think the article is addressing only that and not if you are using your own personal money.
 
Though it makes sense I smell a tinge of jealousy.
Targeting apple products specifically makes it seem that way.
 
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Seems smart to me. A friend of mine used to work at Red Hat, and he told me that almost all the non-dev employees there used Macs. How about some pride in your own products?? Everyone there should have been on RHEL!
 
bharatgupta said:
Now this is funny enough, so what if the ms employees likes apple stuff, it is good, they are barring their rights essentially, not cool ms, either be good or follow the race:D
Click to expand...

I'm guessing pepsi employees get almost all the free pepsi products they want while on the job. If someone wants a coke, pepsi shouldn't have to pay money to a competitor in order for them to get it. If the employee feels like their rights are being barred, they can go find another job or apply at Coca-cola.
 
I believe every Microsoft employee gets paid for the job and can buy whatever they want with that money. No need to use company funds. Problem solved.
 
I don't think it's healthy to keep your employees in a bubble.

I remember reading a blog post by an ex-MS guy who went to work as a Google Evangelist. At Google, he switched to a MacBook Pro and love it. He'd never used a Mac before.

How can MS compete with Apple effectively if they don't really know the Apple user experience?
 
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