One of the more unusual features of Microsoft’s corporate headquarters in Redmond, Washington is the company store: a full-blown retail outlet where employees can buy discounted hardware and software. And also T-shirts with the Bing logo on them.
I quickly got a chance to check out the store during a visit to Redmond this week. While visitors are allowed to look at the merchandise, you can’t actually buy in there without an employee number (which stops people purchasing cheap copies of Office and then flogging them on eBay, I guess).
Disclosure: Angus Kidman travelled to Redmond as a guest of Microsoft.
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11 responses to “Fancy Shopping in The Microsoft Company Store? [Gallery]”
Do the staff pay for it or is it more like the stationary cupboard in the office?
“Another day, another box of stolen pens / Bing shirts”
You laugh, but when there is a box of t-shirts from some user group road show or whatever on the ground in the hallway…. they usually do disappear somehow.
Paid for by employees, but at a pretty good discount.
Yes, you pay for stuff. Some of the stuff, like T-shirts, are expensive for what you get, IMHO. But there tend to be plentiful free t-shirts, jumpers and such in most of the product groups. When I worked there and pulled all-nighters, I never had trouble finding a spare brand new t-shirt to put on after my shower down in the car park. (I worked in Windows. Other divisions might be different.)
Cheap copies of Office?
Surely Microsoft have Software Assurance on their Office licenses and the staff are able to utilize the home use program? What about the additional use rights granted under Office 365?
It’d be depressing working for Microsoft and having to buy Office.
Well, that’s the way it works, dre. Granted, Office copies were cheap (under $75 for Office Professional last I recall), but yeah, you had to pay for them.
I paid for my copy of Office Pro Plus, mind you it was only a mere $15 and now its free with Office 365.
Google also has a similar store at their main campus in California. Have to say, the stuff could only be bought by employees and wasn’t cheap by any stretch of the mind. When it comes to corporate branding I prefer that it be swag from a convention or sales meeting. Paying to advertise a product isn’t my idea of constructive use of funds.
Where do they keep all their Scroogled stuff? Is that at the ‘other’ gift shop?
LOL BING SHIRTS AHAHA