Microsoft Employees To Get Free WP7 Phones! [Microsoft Proves It Eats Its Own Dogfood, All Microsoft Employees Worldwide To Get Free Windows Phone 7 Phones]

Tweet

As we wrote about a few months back – allegedly, Steve Ballmer is a company man. He gets mad if he sees people using iPhones at Microsoft’s campus and tells people that “When my father was a manager at Ford, we drove Fords.” So, Microsoft is going to be helping their employees play for the home team as they’ll be giving out free Windows Phone 7 devices to all employees, worldwide!

A leaked internal e-mail from Microsoft VP Andy Lees to all employees said:

With all the buzz, a lot of you are asking how you can get your hands on a phone and get more involved. So, I am thrilled to announce that a new Windows Phone 7 will be made available to every Microsoft employee as we launch in each market around the world. The process will vary based on your market, your carrier, and your launch date so stay tuned for more information closer to launch.

According to tech blog Gizmodo, Apple and Google did something similar with their phones (iPhone, Nexus One). But, what about the other phone manufacturers? Giz reports that Palm doesn’t give out free phones – but what about Motorola, RIM, Nokia? I know for a fact that some folks in Verizon corporate were using Droid X phones before they were launched (and it isn’t because somebody lost one in the bathroom) but I don’t know if they were given them for free or apart of some employee, reduced cost program.

Although there was a lot of excitement for Windows Phone 7 when it was first unveiled, it’s been getting a lot of negative press as we get closer and closer to launch. The folks at InfoWorld surely aren’t anticipating it, as they called it ‘a disaster’.