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Property Rights and the MSDN PDA Give-Away?
An anonymous reader asks: "MSDN subscribers recently qualified for a free Viewsonic V37 PDA (supposedly, around 25,000 units were given away). The software development group, at my company, just received our shipments; however, now there is contention between the developers and the company over who owns the PDAs.
The company I work for (a worldwide information technology and services company) contends that that they own the PDAs because they were obtained through a subscription purchased by the company and, therefore, the PDAs are company property (and so all company policies governing the use of their property applies). This upset quite a few developers in my group who were excited to have a new gadget to work/play with and now any tinkering must be approved by the company. So, who owns the PDAs -- the developers who found out about the promotion, filled out the forms, paid for the stamps, on their own initiative, etc. or the company who purchased the MSDN subscriptions to make the developers eligible for the 'free' promotion? Also, I am curious to find out if others are having similar debates at their respective companies. Details of the offer can be found here."
now any tinkering must be approved by the company
Any company that doesn't let you tinker with your company owned hardware sounds like a pretty shitty place to work.
The fact that they are making such a big deal about this just reinforces that.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Here's a hypothetical situation for you: You buy a new digital camera, and are unaware that there is currently a $100 rebate available for that camera. If I fill out the rebate form, and mail it in at my own expense, would you say that that $100 is mine, or yours?
Nevermind the fact that you probably don't want to lose your job over a PDA.
Also seen companies that claim they own the frequent-flier miles that employees accumulate, since they paid for the tickets.
Seems like an unpleasant work environment. They'd probably do better to let the employees make use of things that don't cost the company extra. Certainly helps morale, which in turn helps productivity.
IANAL...
We are not a lawyer...
Slashdot is not a lawyer...
I doubt you'll get anything, since the company paid for the merchandise. If you get a "buy one, get one free" your neighbor who told you about the offer doesn't get your freebie. You could ask for the cost of the stamp, but that's about all you'll get. The best you can hope for is to ask for an exemption and to the usage policy and let you tinker with it.
This annoys me so much, I'm tempted to think the question is a troll. Does anyone really think that the PDA wouldn't belong to the company?
I am, and always will be, an idiot. Karma: Coma (mostly effected by
Ding. Congratulations. Thank you for playing.
You have learned "The Golden Rule". He who has the gold, makes the rules.
Don't like it? Pay for your own subscriptions then get your own free stuff.
yes. if the developer won it, then even if it belongs to the company, the developer should get it. to not do so would be not only stupid, but insulting. personally, i'd take the pda myself and refuse to give it back. I won it, and I alone get it. any idiot that would let a company do that should be rethinking their career.
So, what if you paid for the subscription, and your manager pointed out the deal ... who do you think that it should belong to, then?
... eligibility for the offer was "bought", fair and square ...
...
... :)
Personally, were it my decision to make at your company, I would let you have them; it is a windfall, and would make for a good faith gesture on the company's part.
But, if the company paid for the subscription, and this is a realized, tangible benefit of that subscription, then it is the company's property.
Look at it like this; the toy is not Truly Free, or I (not having an MSDN subscription) would have been eligible
Besides, if you paid nothing, either for the subscription, or for the toy itself, where do you get your sense of entitlement?
Of course, for what it is worth, if the company wants to own the toys, they owe you some stamps
Of course, since it came from Micro$oft, you could make a valid argument that you bartered your soul for it
They didn't round up all the units and sell them on ebay. I can think of a couple of companies that would.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
If the company hadn't paid the subscription, would the devs have been eligable to get the PDA's? If you buy a PS2 and I send in for the $20 rebate because you didn't realise you could, who gets the rebate?
Quite simply, the PDAs are the property of the company simply because it was their subscription that paid for them. Therefore they have the say over what does and does not happen with them. Just because you and your buddies saw the offer doesn't give you ownership. Thats like me claiming your rebate on a PS2.
Wake up and smell reality. Stop trying to be a troll. If you're that unhappy about the situation, take your toys and go home. I'm sure Cartman would be proud.
Who owns the frequent flyer miles? The company who paid for the tickets or the traveler who risked deep vein thrombosis?
I think the answers to these questions are the same answer you seek.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
I work for HP. They won't care to take ownership of a ViewSonic which they see as competitor of the iPaq. :)
Regardless, mine is sitting on my desk unopened.. for about 2 weeks now. I already had an iPaq I didn't use. But hey, who am I to pass up a freebie?
seriously, ask microsoft.. they are usually pretty clear on what they think the rules governing their give-aways are... although what MS wants to think and what the law is isn't always the same thing. when they came to my school and gave away a bunch of copies of windows xp and visual studio, they sent everyone an email saying it was wrong for us to ebay them.. didn't stop me from making a quick $100 though.. but their word might convince your boss.
I agree with you that the PDA technically belongs to the company. However, every place I've ever worked has let prizes of this sort go to the employee. Your company pays for you to go to a trade show and you drop your card in someone's fishbowl, winning a DVD player/PDA/Microsoft Inflatable Girlfriend/whatever. I've never known a company that tried to take that away from the employee. Ditto for this sort of thing. The company doesn't need the PDA, else they would have gone out and bought it (unless they have *SERIOUS* cash-flow problems). It's just plain good for morale to let the employees keep the extras.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
from https://vstudio.joleschgroup.com/faq.aspx
Q. My company or organization has multiple licenses for an eligible product via an Open, Select or Enterprise Agreement. Can I (or someone else) enter multiple registrations to take advantage of this offer?
A. No, this offer is for individual end-users only. If your company or organization has multiple licenses for an eligible product, please ask your end-users to register their product individually through this site. You cannot register someone else on his or her behalf.
If the company paid for the subscription, then the employees were doing company work when they filled out the coupons (or whatever) and therefore the company owns the devices. Were I in charge of company resources I would then lend the devices to the people who showed the initiative to fill out whatever needed filling out, with specific instructions that they could do whatever constructive thing they wanted to do with the device, but they couldn't take it with them if they left.
Just make it fair to everybody. Split each PDA in half and the company
will get half of each PDA and the person who won it gets
the other half of the PDA.
Geez, like that was tough to figure out.
get a new employer. i and a coworker have each won pda's and were allowed to keep them. this was on a company paid-for trip as well.
I went to a "PIC microcontroller seminar" on my own dime - about $200 (but I got the programmer hardware as well). The only thing my employer gave me was the day off.
When there, they announced they were going to be giving away an HP LogicDart - a $800 logic analyzer.
While we were all eating lunch (provided as part of the seminar) I commented that I hoped that I would win the Dart, as unlike the bulk of the people attending I would have clear ownership.
Guess what - I did indeed win it!
Funny thing though - the bulk of my time using it has been at work.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Does anyone actually think this company isn't a POS? The developers did the work give them the damn PDA's. They were free and it will go a long way to fostering good will.
One should not theorize before one has data. -Sherlock Holmes-
But "winning a DVD player/PDA/Microsoft Inflatable Girlfriend/whatever" isn't part of the contract for the trade show entry.
And "Microsoft Inflatable Girlfriend"? **Insert BSOD joke here.**
If this was 1999, I'd agree with ya, but in this crappy job market/economy, the employers have all the cards and if you don't like it, you can go look for an IT job with the 1000's of others.
A few years ago he won the same contest, and his boss took a brand new BMW.
Why he doesn't quit, I don't know.
Username taken, please choose another one.
I bought MSDN myself and registered for the giveaway and it was supposed to ship earlier this month but I didn't get it. So I called the 800 number and they said I had to wait another 8-12 weeks. So what gives?
Long before I arrived (1999), our Telecoms Ops manager was at a Nortel or Alcatel junket up in Boston. He won a nice Nikkon digital camera (at the time) as a door prize which the company appropriated for itself when he arrived back home. The moral of the story, don't travel with the VP in charge of your dept.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
Just how valuable are these PDAs anyway? It seems awfully petty to be arguing over the ownership of something that was given away for free in the first place, and would probably only have cost a couple of hundred dollars if it hadn't.
Frankly, I can't see the point in making a fuss over it.
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
I was thinking more along the lines of an uptime joke myself...
-- Pete.
Monochrome - Probably the UK's largest internet BBS
In my opinion, though, I think the company is foolish for trying to claim the PDA's. Most places can't budget an occasional $20 for pizza for their employees, so being able to give people a cool gift for $0 out of their pocket seems like a pretty good deal.
--- Jason Olshefsky
Karma: Poser (mostly affected by adding this line long after everyone else did)
If a company wants to piss off employees, they could probably do something like that. Most don't do it over a $0.10 pen or a $0.50 ball that lights up. If they were complaining about a giveaway, then that would be another story.
A drawing at a trade show is usually won by the person, not by the company. The key is the "No puchase necessary" line. If you dropped in your friend's business card who happened to be at home, your friend would probably still get the drawing's prize. If the prize was based on the fact that you *paid* to be there, the company would probably be able to claim ownership.
I've worked at a place that treast people like that, and the blow to morale is huge. Thankfully, I'm at a much beter place now. The company I left are still jerks, and I'm working for a boss that is wonderful.
I am, and always will be, an idiot. Karma: Coma (mostly effected by
I never said they were smart, just that they can do it. Right != intelligent.
I know first hand how much a blow this can be. I go to a trade show, was given a free software title, only to have it taken by the company since that paid for my ticket. I've since left and have been nothing but glad that I did.
I am, and always will be, an idiot. Karma: Coma (mostly effected by
At my company, the developer's MSDN subscriptions are bought by the company in the developer's name. That way the MSDN subscription belongs to the developer, not the company. If a dev were to leave, the subscription would go with him/her.
We're a small company, and haven't had any developer turnover in 3 years, so a little more trust exists between employees/employer.
You would not have these devices without Visual Studio.NET 2003 and so if you didn't purchase VS.NET 2003 or MSDN then you have no rights to the V37.
When I filled out my forms and sent in my reciept I knew full well that my company owned the device. Luckily my company didn't care about them and let us developers keep them.
Ok, now that it has become a can of worms you pretty much have to submit to the will of the company. In all rights they bought the software licenses and the PDA is something that came free with purchase ... so in effect it is theirs.
: ... I don't even want to think about it.
... this is technically the same thing. In fact it should be reported as income to the IRS by the individual employees, but that isn't going to happen. If you could pick the most charismatic of your group and tactfully get the deciding manager to align these PDAs in his head to the same sort of business perk as SkyMiles, subtly suggesting that hey, we are all on the same team and yea, we acknowledge that we are in effect getting some free goodies as part of the business process, and actually SkyMiles could be used for business travel to save the company money whereas the PDAs could in no way save the company money by being micromanaged ... you might get away with taking them home to play with them as you wish as long as playing with them didn't negatively affect your work. If your company micromanages SkyMiles and doesn't let the flyers keep them for personal use, you are fuxored, hand over the toys.
Two thoughts
1. Who the fsck told anybody with any sort of authority about the PDAs? If I have to guess I would say that there are only half a dozen or less licenses at your company and thus only half a dozen (or less) PDAs - and probably no more PDAs than people in the IT department who would be getting them. The boxes come in, go directly to IT and you little weasles tear them open and start playing with your new toys - nobody else needs to know. Whoever leaked this to the managers needs to be blackballed, cause it cost you guys your toys (an important aspect of being IT.) Maybe it was the seventh guy on the totem pole, the guy that didn't get one and he was jealous, or maybe
2. SkyMiles. Whoever is making these decisions is a manager - and managers fly places. Now you are not in a position to be making demands, but if there is any leverage for discussion on the matter right now you need to turn it around into a language they understand : business perks. If your company lets the manager keep his SkyMiles when he flies for business, even though they are rightfully an extension to the ticket bought by the company, so he can later use the miles for personal travel or whatever
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
If I had to guess, I would say that somebody up the food chain is just salivating over the thought of getting his hands on one of the PDAs and is invoking 'business policy' to take them away from the developers. Petty, particularlly over a $300 toy, but that's where I would place my bets.
Two weeks after he gets it, the manager is going to lose interest and put it in a drawer where it will stay until all usefulness from the PDA has long been depreciated (ie, like a 486 computer would be considered now) and then it will get tossed.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
I doubt you'll get anything
...other than a pink slip. Complain loudly enough, and they just might give you the boot. This doesn't sound like the kind of environment where you complain about this and get what you want.
I agree with you that the PDA technically belongs to the company. However, every place I've ever worked has let prizes of this sort go to the employee. Your company pays for you to go to a trade show and you drop your card in someone's fishbowl, winning a DVD player/PDA/Microsoft Inflatable Girlfriend/whatever. I've never known a company that tried to take that away from the employee. Ditto for this sort of thing. The company doesn't need the PDA, else they would have gone out and bought it (unless they have *SERIOUS* cash-flow problems). It's just plain good for morale to let the employees keep the extras.
Actually, I doubt they even technically belong to the company, if you look at the microsoft site, its pretty clear that they intend for the developers to have have them, not the company that purchased the site license. To claim them, the individual users have to send away for them, the company can't just send it in for all of them and distribute them as it sees fit.
Its a giveaway to the users of the software, not the purchaser of the software. Microsoft owned something and gave that something to the developers because use their software. This isn't really just like a buy one get one free type of thing. Its a free gift for the developers because their registered with microsofts developer program.
Aren't these kind of things supposed to come with a disclaimer of "no purchase necessary"?
If it did, then it should make it obvious that the MSDN subscription only facilitated the entry into the contest, but was not required, and therefore the spoils should go to the individuals.
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
I work for a major company (no names) but the policy is standard. Any time an employee "wins" something at a tradeshow, or gets something like this PDA as part of a "deal" that technically the company owns the employee MUST turn the object over to the company.
AFTER THAT, though, said toy is then given away to one of that employee's group as kind of a (free) raffle. (ie. If a developer won the prize, any and all developers are eligible, but NOT say Upper Management or the nice cleaning lady.)
The logic is that just because the MSDN subscription was bought incidentally in my name doesn't make me any more entitled to the PDA than Joe across the hallway.
Being the one who the PDA is being "taken away from" kinda ticks me off, but I suppose I can't argue with the logic. It's not like I wouldn't just use it for games, anyways.
UNIX boys keep it up longer but Windows will go down on you regardless.
Stephen
"Don't write down to your readers, the only people less intelligent than you can't read" - Sign on Newspaper Office Wall
I work for a large company at which us MSDN-having developers applied for the giveaway. I hear that management had some discussion about taking them away, but decided to let us keep them. I think my company was irritated that MS didn't instead offer them a cash credit.
.Net Compact Frameworks runs on this PDA, so VS.Net developers can write apps against it. It moves .Net to a new platform, and it gets a lot of geeks writing apps on MS's PDA platform.
I don't think they (the PHB's) understood that Microsoft is not simply giving away PDA's to make people happy that they are MS developers. Instead, I think MS is giving them away as yet another way to 0wn a market.
All that being said, I was concerned with what the company was discussing, because while I completely understand their right to keep the PDA's, it really would have been a bad move on their part in terms of employee morale.
I don't know your companites policy on gifts, but it may dictate they have to be thrown out altogether. Many companies don't allow business related gifts, hook-ups, or kick-downs of any kind since it creates potential (no matter how abstract) conflict-of-interest.
Depending on the standing policy they may be able to force you to throw them in the trash, destroy them, or return them. Maybe they could fire you on the spot for actively seeking and accepting the gift! I vote that you can keep your job and use of the PDA, but expect to be asked for it when your employment with the company ends.
We did see the offer, but terms in the UK were very different to the US offer. It was not a straight gizzit situation, so my recent renewal will not see a PDA on my desk to argue (with my employer) about.
I guess I have few options but to take the subscription and and continue to play tag with the UPS man. Alas, it looks like this will never be for anything as valuable as a PDA.
Even the MapPoint product has to be specially requested from MSFT in the US, as its held back for 'geopolitical reasons'.
I'm not bitter about the PDA, just upset with MS UK, who fail to appreciate the value weak willed (Magpie like) individuals like myself in the UK, place on shiny gadgets.
I feel am a second class Microsoft 'Univeral' subscriber. Unloved and unPDA'd.
It seems pretty obvious that "to the finder goes the spoils." If you bought the camera and are too stupid to use the rebate, that's your own problem.
You should have clarified this with your line manager or the company before you went ahead with submitting the claim for the goods. This would have saved your heartache.
I think - unfortunately for you - the company owns the property. In general, the company can be said to own gifts and other items that are related to your activities in the course of business, but most of the time you're allowed to keep them for yourself (I'm thinking of christmas gifts, etc) in so far as it doesn't look like it's cause competition issues (e.g. favouring suppliers that offer free gifts over ones that provide the best deal for the company) or other issues (e.g. bad will between coworkers because some of them are extracting additional fringe benefits).
You just have to be careful about these things.
I agree with you that the PDA technically belongs to the company. However, every place I've ever worked has let prizes of this sort go to the employee.
Reminds me of one company I worked for. A large hardware manufacturer donated a dozen or so PDAs to our development group. They weren't quite a perk per se; said hardware manufacturer was just getting into PDAs, and they gave us the hardware and associated SDKs for free, to see what we'd come up with by way of cool applications. Then, we'd go to market together. It was more like seeding developers than giving away freebies.
All those PDAs ended up in the attache cases of non-technical managers. No applications, cool or otherwise, for that platform were ever developed by the company. In fact, it doesn't produce much by way of anything anymore. Exactly the same thing happened when a handset manufacturer gave the developers their latest phones too.
My company has established guidelines about accepting promotional items from people we do business with. Small items of insignificant value are acceptable. This would include branded little foam trinkets, t-shirts, mini-calculators, etc. If the object is of a significant value, say a PDA, printer, computer, etc, it's the property of the company, but it probably wound't be accepted anyways as it could be an influence in a future decision.
I'd say the PDAs in your case would belong to the company, but those who did the work should get them and use them.
The Unix inflatable girlfriend has a longer uptime, but you have to open the ports yourself. The MS inflatable girlfriend is ready to root out of the box.
Haida Manga
This is clearcut case of the boss abusing his position and company policy.
Most of the time prizes and gifts are appropriated by the company in accordance with company policy, but in most cases the prizes are raffled off among employees. This is fair when someone is given a prize that was based off of a group effort. Every employee / team member contributed, so everyone has a fair shot at reaping the prize reward.
When the boss enacts company policy, confiscates a prize, and then reallocates the prize to himself, that is just an example (IMO) of a greedy, bastard of a boss who wishes to only reap the benefits of the labor his employees put in.
Frankly, I'm surprised that this employee works so hard as to win the prize. The prize is supposed to motivate the salespeople, right? After the boss taking my cruise away from me, I'D probably never try quite that hard again, knowing that the shiny new beamer they are offering will just end up being driven by my boss rather than me.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
At the company I work for a bunch of us have MSDN subscriptions. One of the guys found out about the free promotion (many of us were unaware). He emailed the guy who manages our subscriptions for the company. This guy, in turn, emailed everyone who had a subscription so they could get their free PDA. None of this "hey, it's ours, we bought the subscriptions for you." Now, it could be that they simply saw it as a way to bleed Microsoft a little bit, but I doubt it. A good* company wants their devs to have cool toys, it encourages ingenuity.
*good = Not necessarily in all respects, but at least in some.