Comments

1
Not surprising...Microsoft has only made inferior and broken products, and it seems it is no different for the ones used by the company itself.

Not an Apple fanboy, I just prefer products that work, even if they are made by a company that does not believe in the rights of consumers.
2
rule #1 of computing:

eat your own dogfood
3
Man the arrogance of Apple fanboys is astounding, I've been using Microsoft products for years and they work well for me. But then again I don't worship at the Alter of Jobs and think every non-Apple product sucks.
4
Seems like they would want examples of competing products for reference, if nothing else. I could see why company cell phones shouldn't be iPhones though. Hopefully this isn't targeted at d elopement decisions. That would be very stupid..
5
i was contracted to write commercials for several MS products--VSX, point of sale, that kind of stuff. it was heeee-larious: every one of us on the project sitting around the MS campus typing furiously on our MacBooks.
6

The party line on Apple for years was "we [Microsoft] make more money on each copy of Word/Excel sold for OSX than we do for Windows".

Has that changed?
7
I don't think that's a big problem because everyone I know who works at Microsoft has a WIndows Phone.
8
This is the marketing group, so yes, it makes sense for them to not use products of other companies. Especially when those products have the logo of the other company proudly displayed. It doesn't matter if they use Bootcamp and run Windows, the Apple logo will be seen first.

9
Rule #1 of Microsoft: never buy Apple products, even if Microsoft gets higher revenues on Apple software that Microsoft ships.

Can't fix it if you don't smash it into pieces with a one-size-fits-all hammer first.
10
#7

Based on what I saw at the Verizon store last week...no one is buying a Win phone.
11
@8 has it right; this is sales and marketing where brand image is an important part of the job.

Microsoft is a big place, and there are plenty of people with iPhones and MacBooks (mostly running Windows). The idea that Microsoft is full of zombie employees blindly following Steve Ballmer is amusing, but a more accurate caricature would be quite the opposite. More like a thousand cooks (and their egos) trying to share one kitchen for ten restaurants.
12
Man the arrogance of Microsoft Fanboys is staggering. In four years I went through three new Dell's that I ended up dumping due to software and hardware issues. I bought a refurbished Mac after that back in 2008 and haven't had a single problem yet.
13
Apple has a huge lead in tablets, especially in terms of market penetration, but their alleged lead in ultrabooks is all marketing. The Air is aggressively styled and very thin, but it's no lighter, less capable, and considerably more expensive than a number of high-quality competitors sold by the various name-brand makers of Windows notebooks.
14
LINUX UNIX SOLARIS
15
@7 That is partially because of a big push from Microsoft to have their employees buy only WinPhones a couple of years ago when WP was sucking so hard. I think it was with WP7 that they pushed hard against MSers using Droids or iPhones. I know a guy who is working for a company under a contract at MS, and MS required his company to buy him a WinPhone when he started working there.
16
As I read it, this memo doesn't ban employees from owning Apple products, it simply excludes Apple products from a catalog of products that can be expensed to the Company.

I doubt Apple would cover your Windows or Android phone on the company dime either—as if that were a likely scenario.

Also, what #2 said, which was the mantra during my time there concerning Windows 2000 beta.
17
A friend who is an Apple fan boy said he found his bank statement has a charge he didn't recognize from iTunes store. He called Apple and asked for clarification and they want to charge him $40 to tell him what they charge him for. The freaking nerve ! I'm proud to never own an Apple product and never will.
18
I find it fascinating that there are so many values-based arguments about two different products in this (and so many other) threads. How much have the branders and marketers penetrated our psyches?
19
Does Windows come with SSH yet? Vim? Has Notepad improved since the 1990's? Does Office support OpenDocument yet? Does Outlook have a threaded view yet? Do you still have to tell a Windows machine to reboot in order to get the opportunity to log out? Is Internet Explorer still developed, and if so, does it render standard HTML correctly yet?

Do any Microsoft designers ever look at the end product and say, "I'm really proud of this"?
20
@18: Likely because for the average person, you essentially have to either choose Apple or Microsoft when you want a personal computer.

If you only had to choose between Ford and Chevrolet when buying a car, I imagine it would have a similar effect.
21
XBox is better than Playstation

Sega is better than Nintendo

Coke is better than Pepsi
22
It has really struck me, since moving to Seattle, how partisan Microsoft employees are. They're just things, people. They're just tools. I've never worked for a company that has so demonized or ridiculed its competitors. Weird culture.
23
Holy shit, @19

You haven't used a Windows or Office product in about 11 years I take it? Yes to all of your "do you have" questions.

Also, throwing this out there. I am running Windows 8 consumer preview (and loving it) on my MacBook because OS X cannot seem to function. Even after verifying, repairing, and re imaging the hdd. I also like my windows phone. It works better BETTER than an iPhone.

Bottom line: brand loyalty is stupid.
24
@#19
Does Windows come with SSH yet? Vim? Has Notepad improved since the 1990's? Does Office support OpenDocument yet? Does Outlook have a threaded view yet? Do you still have to tell a Windows machine to reboot in order to get the opportunity to log out? Is Internet Explorer still developed, and if so, does it render standard HTML correctly yet?

What a deeply strange, arbitrary, and at times ignorant series of questions. Still, happy to help. In order, from my extremely limited, non-expert knowledge:
1) I don't think so. It may take as much as 60 seconds to decide on and install an SSH client (Putty works for me, though I've not really shopped around). Anyone who'd use SSH is capable of this.
2) Is this meant to be a joke? Have I misunderstood? Are you really asking about some random twenty-year old Unix-environment text editor?
3) Notepad is a text editor. Why should it change? Has Apple's TextEdit changed?
4) Office has supported OpenDocument since 2007, says Wikipedia.
5) I've never used Outlook, so I dunno. A Google search suggests it does offer Threaded Views, since at least 2010
6) No, you can log off without rebooting. This is true in Windows 7, I think it was true in previous versions but I'm not sure.
7) I don't use Internet Explorer, haven't for the best part of a decade, but I'm pretty sure they're still churning it out. No idea how well it renders HTML.
25
That's an interesting policy to put in place. I can see why someone does it, but at the same time I would imagine that they would need to test the Microsoft products for Apple on the latest configuration and product types of Apple's stuff, so an all-out ban on expensing Apple products seems rather short-sighted. Perhaps putting a few hoops in place to jump through to get one might make sense, but just straight-out banning purchase with company funds doesn't make sense at all.
26
@16

Apple buys Windows licenses in order to run critical software that isn't available for the OS X. Usually they run it on VMs like Parallels. Or dual boot.

They're not known to embarrassed by it. The ability to have your cake and eat it too is a Mac feature.
27
@24 in reply to @19,

#6, you've been able to log off without rebooting since... Windows 95 circa 1995, or WinNT 3.1, circa 1993. The questioner is about two decades out of date.

28
The sports team from my area is superior to the sports team from your area.
29
@19 >Is Internet Explorer still developed, and if so, does it render standard HTML correctly yet?

Is it still 1993 where you live? Maybe you can prevent 9/11.

IE is still being developed, IE9 out performs Chrome FF etc across several benchmarks.
"Standard" HTML? aw bless - as if there's one standard.
30
Tom's Hardware regularly does comparisons of the latest version of all the major web browsers. Here's the latest:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/chro…

And IE does not do terribly in their assorted benchmarks (Speed, stability, accurate HTML rendering). Typically Chrome and Firefox come in ahead. Still, it does help illustrate how outdated the whole 'IE IS ALWAYS INFERIOR IN EVERY WAY TO NETSCAPE" arguments people still drag out despite the fact that is no longer 2001.
31
That's just stupid.

They create and support Mac software (Office and its variations), and Windows can run on newer Macs without emulation software.

Sure, I can see that they'd mostly want Windows machines, but it seems really stupid to completely ban them altogether. How do they plan to produce future Mac software without Macs?
32
@#31
This is regarding purchases within a group listed as "Microsoft Sales, Marketing, Services, IT, & Operations". I know nothing about Microsoft's organizational structure, but it isn't obvious to me that this list includes software development, or outside tech support, both of whom need to do testing on Apple products; it seems to be more about sales reps and middle managers wanting to carry an iPad around.
33
As re vi(m) in 19: same as with Putty, it took me three minutes just now (rounding up to the nearest three minutes) to download vim for Windows. Probably my mom and dad don't need that to ship in-box. O_o
34
@13 - Agreed. Trouble is I like OSX so much better than Windows 7, so I have to pay the $400 surcharge.

I'll re-evaluate once Windows 8 ships for real.
35
I didn't suggest that rebooting was required to logout. Last I remember, you couldn't see a logout button until you gave the three-finger salute or clicked "restart" in the start menu. Microsoft UI is consistently horrible.

Why would Notepad change? Because it's horrible.

I quit using Windows regularly in 1999. Occasionally, I have to use it for something, and it's nearly always a frustrating experience.
36
Once you have a few of them there's really no need for more. Of course microsoft develops for the mac, of course they sell licences for the mac, of course they buy macs to test and use their own software. No, they shouldn't but these things in order for people to use for daily work activities, but I wouldn't exactly expect such a shitty company to do anything useful.
37
@9: "Rule #1 of Microsoft: never buy Apple products, even if Microsoft gets higher revenues on Apple software that Microsoft ships.

Can't fix it if you don't smash it into pieces with a one-size-fits-all hammer first."

Hi Will, you've never worked at Microsoft, you have no clue what you're talking about, shut the fuck up. Plenty of people bring in Apple products, iPhones, Macbooks, iPads, etc. The Macbooks run Windows, but still, STOP PRETENDING YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT TECHNOLOGY.

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