Microsoft R&D Burgled: Only Apple Products Stolen 141
Sir Realist writes "Apparently Microsoft's R&D offices in Mountain View were broken into over the holidays: the only things stolen were Apple iPads and the theft has apparently been confirmed from a number of sources."
Brandnames (Score:4, Insightful)
you know your marketting has failed (Score:5, Insightful)
When someone breaks into your R & D shop and the only thing they see of value is someone else's gear.
Re:as much as I'd like to make a joke... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's entirely possible that a Surface tablet was around to compare/contrast how the software runs on the different platforms.
Re:makes sense (Score:1, Insightful)
Seriously? Modded "insightful". God damnit I hate this place now.
Re:as much as I'd like to make a joke... (Score:5, Insightful)
It was an R&D center for making Apple software, so there probably were no Surface tables around...
Unlikely. Microsoft sports a very aggressive corporate culture where if you don't use Microsoft for everything, you're "not a team player." This is the company that watched its entire mail service (Hotmail) implode because the edict from on high was they had to use IIS exclusively. It simply couldn't handle the load, regardless of the number of servers and load balancers they threw on... with much chagrin they rolled back to Apache. Linux is used on print servers internally to this day, though it's a dirty secret. They may have had iPads there for development work, but you can bet many of those developers also had Surface tablets because they have to develop for those as well.
Considering how few of them have sold so far, it's safe to say the product launch, er, exploded on the launch pad. But Microsoft, being Microsoft, will still demand their employees use them or else. I'm sure they'd still be demanding their employees avoid ipods and use Zunes, but we all know what happened there. :)
Re:makes sense (Score:2, Insightful)
iPads can be sold/pawned for cash (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft prototypes can't easily be sold. I see the obvious joke that the Microsoft prototypes were not of value, but in a sense, if they can't be sold, then that is true.
Re:as much as I'd like to make a joke... (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if the thieves were at all cautious about stealing MS hardware from MS because of how tightly some tech companies are known to control pre-release or dev versions of hardware?
Most likely, the fact that it's easier and quicker to flip stolen iDevices for cash was the reason; but I know that I'd be a bit nervous about stealing a contemporary 'appliance' type device in a situation where it might be some kind of specially blessed dev unit. Modern hardware has at least 3-4 globally unique numbers burned in, and tends to call home frequently, and it wouldn't be a big surprise if dev gear(for reasons of loss prevention or UX testing) is stuffed to the gills with analysis and reporting software...
Re:Onion called, wants their story back (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you get depressed seeing Obama double down on that?
Re:makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
"And nothing of value was lost", said everyone at the Microsoft R&D center.
Yep. Regardless of how you feel about one company or another, an unreleased product from company A is almost certainly more valuable than a commonly available product from company B. My suspicion would be that the thieves were probably employees or contractors at the MS site (cleaning or other cheap labor crew or some such) and knew they could get a quick buck for the Apple products. They probably didn't even know what some of the other stuff was. Asserting the apple products were selected because of their superiority is about as silly as the tongue in cheek assertion that Steve Jobs is really responsible for NY Crime rates due to the theft of Apple products.
Also, if you follow the news here at all you'll see that missing development products from large companies attract great attention from law enforcement. Missing ipads get filed away as a report somewhere and if they happen to catch the guy, then everyone is happy. If not, MS is out, what maybe $2k that they can now write off? What missing ipads don't get are federally funded investigations.
Re:Brandnames (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:makes sense (Score:4, Insightful)
They were likely the only things of value in the building.
I would think the research there is valuable. It however isn't easily sold on the street. It's like breaking into a mansion and stealing the silverware and ignoring the priceless art on the walls.