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A Tour of Microsoft's Mac Lab
I'm Don Giovanni writes "David Weiss of Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit (MacBU) gives a virtual tour of Microsoft's Mac Lab at Redmond, reportedly one of the largest Mac labs outside of Apple (includes 150 Mac minis!)." Great pictures. From the article: "The first area in the Mac Lab is what we call the Sandbox. This is where we keep all significant hardware configurations Apple has released that run our products. We'll use the Plasma display to, watch DVDs and play games, uh er, I mean, do important training presentations. ;-) It's actually very useful because everyone can be in front of a computer and still see the main screen and follow along. Often other groups at Microsoft (the games group, hardware drivers group and even the Windows media group) will come and schedule time in the Mac Lab to test their software on the different hardware configurations."
...as if millions of slashdotters applied for testing jobs at Microsoft and then were suddenly silenced.
It looks like the Mac Business Unit alone is responsible for at least 1% out of Apple's 5% market share!
Where do you think the Vista user interface design team has been spending all it's time?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Now that iTunes and other apps run in Windows, does Apple have a Windows lab?
Between this and the story we heard yesterday from the ex-Unix Microsoft programmer, do you get the feeling that some sort of viral/undercover "come work at Microsoft" marketing is going on?
This is very interesting to see since the last guy in the news to blog about Microsoft's Macs got fired for it. Perhaps this is the rebound from the bad press they recieved over that incident?
This seems like it's part of a broader wave of MS advocacy and transparency that has unfolded over the past year or so. Although I still don't like Microsoft terribly much, these glimpses inside have given me some pause. The employees and culture seem actually decent enough.
Off the record but I've heard that the label on the Mac lab door actually reads "the copy room"
An entire room filled with bright, cheerful Microserfs wearing shirt padding and plastic bald caps greet me as I enter the Fucking Kill You Lab in Redmond's well-lit East Campus. Before I can say a word, chairs fly across the room in all directions as each vows to Fucking Kill (TM) Google, Apple, Sun, Linus Torvalds, and inexplicably, Olestra.
Fucking Kill You Lab director Thaul Purrott tells me that this is "the future of Windows innovation" and not surprisingly, customer support just as an airborne chair caster nearly decapitates him.
"Made up/misattributed quote that makes me look smart. I am on
The answer is in that quote:
The testers investigate the failures, log any bugs and then move on to their other duties as testers.
It doesn't say anyone actaully fixes the bugs they log, does it?
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Here's a tour of Microsoft's Linux Lab:
Cool, huh?
A Microsoft employee is reporting on Mac use from a site owned by Google? Hang on, I think I see a pig passing by my 4th story window...
Why is his blog not on an MSN domain or something like that?
Developers: We can use your help.
Yeah, right. The Windows media group have given up on Windows Media Player for the Mac, so what are they testing?
And since when does the Microsoft games group develop anything for the Mac? Halo was ported by Westlake Interactive and MacSoft, and they dropped the Mac port of Flight Simulator decades ago. So what games are actually written at Microsoft for the Mac?
Drivers? They licensed the code for their Mac mouse drivers from Alessandro Montalcini. Maybe they do a little testing now and again, but most of it is just USB HID anyway. Do Microsoft make any other hardware for the Mac?
Internet Explorer? Oh, sorry, they dropped that too.
The whole thing smells like PR crap designed to make Microsoft look like a major developer of Mac software, when in truth all they really work on these days is Office.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I wonder why they couldn't keep developing Internet Explorer??
Because (to paraphrase their official statement) they could not hope to compete, because they couldn't get the kind of access to OS X that the Safari team could.
It's actually kind of funny when you remember that Microsoft always disputed other Windows developers' claims that they couldn't compete against Microsoft's own Windows applications for much the same reason. The term "Chinese wall" comes to mind.
~Philly