A photo tour of Microsoft's Mac Lab

April 21, 2006 4:10 PM

Welcome to Microsoft's Mac Lab.
posted by nakedcodemonkey (26 comments total)

This is awesome but didn't MS fire a temp when he took a photo of just a mac shipping box? How in the heck is an inside tour of MS' mac lab remotely ok with MS?
posted by mathowie at 4:18 PM on April 21, 2006

That's justa crazy number of individual computers all in one room, all running.
posted by raedyn at 4:20 PM on April 21, 2006

"Are you going to be fired?"

He's been blogging for months about his job, from a Blogger site no less. Not to mention the number of other MS blogs, most notably Scoble's. Apparently corporate PR has learned from some of its dumber mistakes.
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 4:26 PM on April 21, 2006

This is awesome but didn't MS fire a temp when he took a photo of just a mac shipping box?

Yep.

I think Michael has a MeFi account, too.

How in the heck is an inside tour of MS' mac lab remotely ok with MS?

I don't think they understood blogging back then. Channel 9 and their other internal blogs really took off, though, and MSFT seems to like the look of transparency and openness it gives them.

Back in 2004 there was a Seattle weblogger meetup held jointly with an MSFT weblog meetup, and half the people there were from MSFT, and most of them had just started a blog.
posted by dw at 4:34 PM on April 21, 2006

I think the temp's picutre was a problem due to the secure nature of the loading dock, not the shipment of macs itself. That and he was, after all, a temp.
posted by IronLizard at 4:59 PM on April 21, 2006

I guess this must be like pornography for some people.
posted by fire&wings at 5:09 PM on April 21, 2006

Hah, my current machine is now so old that they have the Software Restore CD on the door as a trophy.
posted by darukaru at 5:11 PM on April 21, 2006

that's a very well put together tour.

Even a couple of nice jokes.

It does get a bit...pr-e...near the end.

Still pretty cool though.
posted by wah at 5:28 PM on April 21, 2006

why are those four seperate lines of text?

I'm sure he asked his manager or he IS the manager. Obviously this is good MS PR, and not a security issue, as long as no work products are shown.

That rack of Minis is impressive.
posted by cellphone at 5:42 PM on April 21, 2006

I just creamed my shorts.
posted by mds35 at 6:23 PM on April 21, 2006

So what do they do in the Windows testing division? Do they have every possible configuration set up in that room? Wouldn't it, like, collapse under the force of its own gravity and destroy the solar system?
posted by fungible at 6:31 PM on April 21, 2006

Hi. I work at Microsoft. If I feel compelled to blog about my work (which is not often), I'll talk to my manager about it first. No big deal, no official red tape. Just a couple of people having a common sense conversation. If my manager and I can't come to an agreement, we'll defer further up the chain (this has never happened to me, but it's how I would proceed). It's about being responsible and using your own best judgement.
posted by tomharpel at 6:36 PM on April 21, 2006

So what do they do in the Windows testing division?

Haha! That's rich. You and me and Windows users everywhere—we're the Windows testing division.
posted by 327.ca at 6:44 PM on April 21, 2006

I'm just not getting the excitement here. It's pictures of a lab full of development boxes? I must be missing something. Maybe koolaid.
posted by octothorpe at 8:10 PM on April 21, 2006

Yes, welcome. But don't be tempted to play mac mini dominoes.
posted by pmbuko at 8:24 PM on April 21, 2006

The windows testing rooms are immense. MS used to have videos on their site showing win xp nightly beta testing, and there'd be a room with 200 monitors, 500 video cards, etc, as they tested every possible PC configuration.
posted by mathowie at 9:33 PM on April 21, 2006

I loved this. As a Windows user and Mac lover, this just spoke realms to me about what they go through to make stuff Mac friendly and I appreciate it! Thanks, ncm!
posted by Lynsey at 11:48 PM on April 21, 2006

Takes me back to my days in 115--I can even taste the Diet Ice. Nice post.
posted by soda pop at 1:45 AM on April 22, 2006

Very Microserfs. Thanks for this!
posted by brautigan at 4:00 AM on April 22, 2006

"As punishment for bad behavior, we put the Xserve in the Dell rack."

You monster!
posted by saraswati at 5:04 AM on April 22, 2006

It sure takes a lot to produce crappy bloated software that costs an arm and a leg.
posted by NewBornHippy at 6:22 AM on April 22, 2006

The wiring behind those racks is sickening. Of course, they're not running a datacenter there, but when you've seen something run properly, it's very difficult to understand why anyone would want to do it improperly.

The details about the automated testing setup were interesting, as were the progressive shots of their testing hardware. It looks like a nice place to work.

I am sorry he resorted to quoting the overused "work hard, play hard" mantra. I suddenly felt like I was reading an employee handbook.
posted by Kikkoman at 2:17 PM on April 22, 2006

Strange, all of the employees blogs that I've seen from MS have about the same flavor to them. It's more like purposeful shilling or PR work than anything else. They've really gotten this 'HI WE'RE REALLY FRIENDLY' thing down to a formula. I wonder is their supervisors have editorial powers over their 'personal' blogs and forum posts.....
posted by IronLizard at 3:38 PM on April 22, 2006

That's laughable paranoia.
posted by bz at 11:31 AM on April 23, 2006

IronLizard, I doubt it's any sort of editorial policy, instead, it's institutional culture. People are super-psyched to talk about their impactful performant products.
posted by Good Brain at 11:41 AM on April 23, 2006

People who work at Microsoft and talk about their job in public tend to be positive. Go figure.
posted by smackfu at 7:51 AM on April 24, 2006