The world’s no.1 software company Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) will give away new smartphones, tablets and computers to its 94,000 employees around the world. The company is getting ready for the launch of a slew of new products on October 26.
Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Redmond, Washington-based company said during Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s annual meeting with employees on Thursday. He said each company employee will get a new Microsoft Surface tablet, Windows 8 PC and a Windows 8 Phone device. For PCs, the employees will have the freedom to choose among a desktop, laptop and ultrabook.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s director of corporate communications, Lou Gellos said that the company makes sure that Microsoft employees have best and the latest technology to boost their productivity and make them great evangelists.
“Steve Ballmer acknowledged that Microsoft is on the eve of one of its greatest moments as it prepares to ship a remarkable line-up of devices and services,” he said. The employees are likely to receive new devices by December this year.
The company has 94,000 employees, that means it will hand out approximately 282,000 Windows 8 products. It may be a way for Microsoft to test the new products. The company has earlier relied on its employees to conduct trials for Bing on a large scale.
The meeting was not open for media, but the company employees hailed the even at social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. “Great Microsoft company meeting, even ignoring my onstage cameo and Ballmer’s generous Oprah-style hardware giveaways to all employees,” an employee tweeted. Oprah is known for giving away gifts to her audience.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is not the only firm to have done so. The newly appointed chief executive of Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO), Marissa Mayer also promised Yahoo employees new smartphones. Yahoo employees will have a number of choices including the latest releases by Apple, Nokia and Samsung under the plan, “Yahoo! Smart Phones, Smart Fun!”
According to Business Insider, Marissa said, “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.”
