Quick, Hide Your iPod! Bill Gates is Coming!

According to an article published in Wired Magazine, Microsoft executives are getting increasingly angry that close to over 10,000 of their own employees own an iPod. Frustrated over their increasingly futile attempts to take over the music player market from Apple, the final nail in the coffin is when their own employees refuse to buy Microsoft products. So, as a result, word is trickling down from the top of the MS chain, down to the employees. that to own an iPod is to be a Microsoft employee in bad standing.

This little e-mail exchange, for example, pretty much sums up MS' internal battle against the iPod. An internal memo initiated by an MS manager, began circulating one day that let readers know that a new shipment of iPods had arrived at the nearby Apple Store:

"FWIW, the gal at the Bellevue Square Apple Store said that they are getting in two shipments of 200 iPods every day to keep up with this week's demand, and are nearly constantly selling out."

The note prompted a curt reply from Dave Fester, general manager of the Windows Digital Media division, who wrote the group:

"I sure hope Microsoft employees are not buying iPods. We have great alternatives. Check out http://experiencemore."

Fifteen minutes later, the manager responded:

"I don't know what I was thinking. I'm sure that Microsoft employees are not buying iPods, or Macs or PlayStations."

That shit is straight gangsta!