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."

Comments

All together now.....

[Kalak]

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?