Microsoft hands out 90,000 Windows Phones to employees and PDC attendees

By on Oct 30, 2010 at 9:00 PM
General October 30, 2010

Santa Ballmer? Steve Claus? Neither nickname has a great ring to it, but Microsoft’s CEO definitely deserves something similar this holiday season. Network World confirmed Thursday that Microsoft will be handing out free Windows Phone 7 devices to each and every company employee — that’s about 89,000 phones. Add to that another 1,000 free WP7 handsets that will be passed out to Microsoft’s Professional Developer Conference attendees, and you’ve got quite an expense (likely over $20 million) that the Redmond giant is swallowing. You can’t put a price on publicity, however, and 90,000 free phones translates into a pretty huge amount of chatter. This is all well and good, but let’s hope the sizable stunt also ends up moving some product.

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  • …

    Dig the commercials too… Especially when the duff drops his phone in the urinal.

  • Cha_pimp

    I got to play with the surround today at the Razorbacks game, att had a booth set up.. I wasn’t all that impressed. All the lady kept saying is “you see how easy this is to post on facebook”? You go to this hub, and click here, and now you just commented on this on facebook, or shared this. I wanted to say, Lady! DO I LOOK LIKE A TWEEN!

  • michaele

    At least 80,000 of them will be for sale on ebay within three days of the distribution.

    When will the MS board fire this guy? He’s a loser with no vision or leadership.

    Under his leadership MS will cease to exist in anything resembling its current form within 10 years.

    • rederikus

      Nice present for the employees though.

      WM7 is about the only thing that I will replace my BlackBerry with.

  • sam

    Well they have to dump them somewhere. Next up, WP7 phones to all Seattleites.

  • Mrwirez

    A big -fat, raging lunatic at the helm of your company is not the ideal situation. Ballmer must go…

  • ant

    I guess the opening weekend sales would be 90,001.

  • Mr.Bill

    A lot of haters here lol.
    All I can say is, If it’s a success, you’ll be looking for something else to b*tch about sadly.

    Also,.. the phone is already being sold overseas, so it’s hardly the first run of them being sold..Still, did the magic money company offer any to there coders? lol
    Woz even had to buy his own.

    Ballmer may be a big guy, but I would put my money on him in a cage fight against that puke Jobs. Would be over fast indeed, punch one, an Jobs passes out before hitting the canvas crapping his pants on way down.

    Ballmer is more then a big guy an has a head on his shoulders that I am sure is much smarter then the ones commenting here.It’s also better to be passionate then full of fluffy magical unicorns…Unless you have them plastered all over your room in your moms basement.

    • Roger A

      At the end of the day, and when it comes down to it, lets be honest….
      Which company is selling millions of phones its first week? Apple!
      Which company is creating implementing innovative features that are user friendly in their phone? Apple!
      Which company has created ONE brand phone with ONE manufacture and still has one of the most popular phones in the world and America? Apple!
      Which “Steve” doesnt look like a lunatic and a bumbling asshole on state? Apple!

      Shall I continue?

      While you may REALLY like Microsoft, and Windows Phone 7 (aka WM7) the fact remains that Apple is well ahead of Microsoft in the wireless phone domain, and while I personally am disgusted by both companies, I give way more credit to Apple because they deserve it.

      • Roger A

        Hells bells Dolores… I meant to say

        creating and implementing

        as well as “bumbling asshole on stage”

        So I screwed up with typing so fast, mark my comment down ya fucking cry baby.

  • RAS

    Love him or hate him, you’ve GOT to admire Ballmer’s sense of style, particularly his dance moves:

    • swami

      he’s embarrassing

  • shlammed

    boooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggg

  • bob

    gonna be a lot of cheap wp7 phones on ebay this season

    • Ioncloud9

      So ill be able to get that Dell Venue Pro i want so badly for less than I originally thought!

  • kashifkhan65

    If you have to give out 90k in phones …. Then you have already lost. MS is only undermining the products own value buy doing this….

  • http://www.buymobile.net BuyMobile.net

    I don’t see how the Windows phone can even be viewed as relevant…. I think its yet another sad attempt by my microsoft to keep up with current technology..

    Buy Mobile

    • rederikus

      BAlmer should have given them to CrApple employees to show them how a phone shgould be done.

      I guess he did not because CrApple would have ripped off all the technology and then MS would have sued CrApple into oblivion — on second thoughts…

  • Anonymous

    I work for T-Mobile in a corporate retail store, and anyone who sold over 15 htc phones between Oct – Nov will also receive a free HD7. Not sure if HTC or Microsoft is paying for it, but that’s a lot of HD7′s / WP7 being given out.

  • Gordon

    If MSFT goes out of business how many Indians get sent back to India?

  • one for me too

    Well that is one way to get market share.

  • Ma

    So I work for MS and this is the deal today in the US.

    You get reimbursed up to $200 for a phone. This works out to a new contract price. So either you have to extend your current contract or get a new one.

    MS reimbursed services costs up to a point. This is nothing new.

    So not really free, but still a nice offer if you can swing a new contract of upgrade your current one. There might be a an update to that plan this week.

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