Microsoft barring certain staff from buying Macs, iPads?
updated 10:25 pm EDT, Tue March 20, 2012
Leaked e-mail points to new policy
Microsoft has reportedly moved to prohibit employees in its Sales, Marketing, Services, IT, and Operations Group (SMSG) from using company funds to purchase any products produced by Apple. The company had already barred staffers from using expense allocations for competing smartphone platforms, however the new guidelines explicitly note that Macs and iPads have been added to the list.
"Within SMSG we are putting in place a new policy that says that Apple products (Mac & iPad) should not be purchased with company funds," an alleged letter distributed to staff reads, according to excerpts posted on ZDNet. "The current purchase levels are low, however we recognize there will be a bit of transition work associated with this."
Microsoft has yet to officially confirm the authenticity of the e-mail, however the company offered "no comment" rather than an outright denial.
Mac Elite
Joined: Jan 2002
Is stupid...
What a bonehead thing to do. Macs run Windows and Office. iPads can run OneNote and other Microsoft programs if they made em. Some of Microsoft's stuff isn't awful. My advice to Apple is to purchase a percentage of Microsoft—somewhere in the neighborhood of at least a fifth of the company. They aren't going away. And currently, or at least till v8 of Windows appears on shelves and tablets, Apple's primary market of selling tablet devices is not the same as Microsoft's. At this stage, I'd leverage/force them into complicity—at least insofar as providing the same software as they would have on their own platform. I don't think anybody would have any sympathy for Microsoft if Apple decided to go after em and get em to play a bit more fairly.