Microsoft Employees Hide Their iPhones Around Ballmer [Sources Say 10% Of Microsoft Employees Are Avid iPhone Users, Hide Their Phones When Executives Are Around]

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It’s not really a shock that some of the the hi-tech geeks who work for Microsoft would enjoy the iPhone over the (usually) dreadful Windows Mobile devices. But, as it turns out, they’re forced to hide their iPhones from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Very few employees will use an iPhone openly, some disguise them in “old” smartphone cases (Palm Treo 680, anybody?).

Why Microsoft has no official ban on using iPhones at Microsoft’s Redmond campus, Steve Ballmer, according to reports from within, says frequently to employees that when his father was a manager for the Ford Motor Company, they drove Ford cars. For example, Steve Ballmer told Fortune magazine in 2006 that his kids don’t use an iPod, and that they used Windows Live Search (now Bing) over Google.

Sources within Microsoft say that when word spreads that Ballmer or other high-level executives are coming by various buildings in the Microsoft campus, iPhones disappear out of sight. While nobody has been fired for seen using an iPhone, it definitely sounds like an interesting atmosphere.

The Wall Street Journal, who broke the story, compared it to Apple, where it reports that most Apple employees, from the engineers at Cupertino to the retail jockies at Apple Stores all proudly use Apple computers, iPhones, etc. This story has to be viewed through the lens of Windows Phone 7, which, by all accounts, looks to be much better than Windows Mobile 6.5 (and any version of Windows Mobile, actually). It’ll be interesting to see if the iPhone users at Microsoft make the switch to Windows Phone 7.

How do you feel about the (so-called) “culture of fear” at Microsoft regarding the iPhone?