Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates notoriously refused to buy iPods for his kids, gifting them the company’s own Zunes instead. Thanks to a leaked memo, it appears Microsoft itself may be taking a similar tack -- you can have your iPhone, but we’re not paying for it.
ZDNet is reporting that Microsoft’s Sales, Marketing, Services, IT, & Operations Group (SMSG) appears to be frowning on the purchase of Apple products -- at least while spending corporate dollars, anyway. The SMSG group makes up 46,000 Microsoft employees worldwide, one of whom leaked an email memo noting the change to ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley.
“Within SMSG we are putting in place a new policy that says that Apple products (Mac & iPad) should not be purchased with company funds,” the email dated March 14 from CFO Alain Crozier reads. “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.”
Foley requested confirmation from Redmond that the email was indeed real, but “was told by a spokesperson that the company had no comment.”
ZDNet notes that Microsoft policy has kept iPhones, Blackberrys and Palm devices -- as well as their data plans -- from being expensed since at least 2009, and provided employees with free Windows Phone handsets the following year. However, non-Microsoft products haven’t been banned from the company completely -- but Redmond clearly doesn’t want their hard-earned dollars going to support the competition, either.
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(Image courtesy of TechnoStreak.com)
