Showing she cares about her new employees, Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO)’s boss Marissa Mayer will give all of them new smartphones including Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s new iPhone 5.
According to Business Insider, the CEO sent an email to Yahoo’s U.S. employees and promised them a new smartphone. The choices included the new Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Samsung, Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK), or HTC Corp (TPE:2498).
Sounds pretty generous but a few weeks ago Mayer said, as a user of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s iPhone, she wanted all of Yahoo’s employee to utilize one as well. To ensure this would happen, sources said the CEO was looking at using Yahoo’s large cash reserves to purchase phones for all employees.
It seems like a morale boost but Mayer supposedly had a different intent. With everyone having an iPhone, it would “get consistency across the company.”
Supposedly Yahoo employees use difference smartphones including BlackBerrys, iPhones, Androids. By having everyone using the same device, it would emphasize the products and allow employees to get used to one platform.
Now it appears Mayer is making this a reality under the plan, “Yahoo! Smart Phones, Smart Fun!”
Business Insider learned about the snappy plan’s details through an internal corporate memo. The intent of the program, according to the communication, is “We’d like our employees to have devices similar to our users, so we can think and work as the majority of our users do.”
But it’s not all about the Apple phone. Employees can choose from the following smartphones: iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S3, HTC One X, HTC EVO 4G LTE, or Nokia Lumia 920.
They also won’t have to worry about the accompanying bill: Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) will pay for it along with data.
For employees married to their Blackberrys, they will face challenges as Yahoo plans to stop its IT support.
Per Business Insider, here’s content from the memo:
We have a very exciting update to share with you today – we are announcing Yahoo! Smart Phones, Smart Fun! As of today, Yahoo is moving off of blackberries as our corporate phones and on to smartphones in 22 countries. A few weeks ago, we said that we would look into smartphone penetration rates globally and take those rates into account when deciding on corporate phones. Ideally, we’d like our employees to have devices similar to our users, so we can think and work as the majority of our users do.
Moving forward, we’ll offer you a choice of devices as well as provide monthly plans for the data and phone.
The smartphone choices that we are including in the program are:
* Apple iPhone 5
*Android:
– Samsung Galaxy S3
– HTC One X
– HTC EVO 4G LTE
* Windows Phone 8:
– Nokia Lumia 920We’re getting started right away and taking orders starting now.
The project is expected to cost a few million dollars, which is chump change for company that makes billions in revenues.
