How excited would you be if you received a memo from your CEO effectively gifting you an iPad this holiday season? For the 1,800 staff members of newspaper Financial Times, it was indeed a dream come true.

PaidContent.org is reporting that The Financial Times employees will be getting a little pay bump this Christmas, as long as they spend it on an iPad. CEO John Ridding announced to 1,800 staff members in a memo this week that the company wants to encourage tablet reading habits by the staff, and the newspaper is putting their money where their mouth is.

“I’m pleased to let you know that we are launching today a new initiative that will allow FT staff to claim a £300 (€350/ US $480) subsidy for the purchase of a personal iPad or tablet,” Ridding announced in a staff memo. “This will run from today until 30th June 2011.”

The Financial Times is already investing in tablets, having an app for both the iPad as well as the new Samsung Galaxy Tab. The newspaper sees its iPad gifting as a way to stimulate interest in tablets, starting with their own people first.

“We have seen rapid growth in readership on these new devices, which support and extend our ‘channel neutral’ strategy,” Ridding explained. “Given their importance and the wave of innovation that we are seeing in applications and services, we want to encourage all our staff to be expert and experienced in using them.”

The company isn’t fooling around, either -- their iPad tab is expected to cost $864,000, which is probably pocket change for them after the successful launch of The Financial Times iPad app, which snared the company £1 million in ad sales alone as well as 400,000 users since the May launch.

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(Image courtesy of PaidContent.org)