Comments on: Microsoft: No iPhone reimbursements for workers

As part of its wave of cost cuts, the software maker will only reimburse workers for Windows Mobile cell phones.

[macewan_]

I wonder how many Apple employees use Windows Mobile smart phones.

[LaTene_Man]

Or RIM employees use an iPhone? Etc. etc. etc. Why does it matter

[darkr]

for one thing latene_Man

RIM doesn't reimburse their employees at all they are put on a corporate data plan and given old or new phones depending on their needs my brother in law for example got a blackberry curve a really old one and he is in the corporate tech support

if yoiu want voice you can add it but you pay for that yourself to add to the plan

[ewelch]

Eating one's own dog food has merit. But it still seems a bit pathetic that they even have to mention it.

What would really make it look bad is if a large proportion of their employees choose to go iPhone anyway.

[Holly Klug]

It sure is dog food.

Windows Mobile resembles Windows 3.0. Constantly running out of memory and needing a reboot. Often it freezes, so you have to pull the battery. We got it for the applications, but what a pain.

Maybe they should make a DOS 6 phone.

[bevoholic]

A lot of you guys don't seem to understand that Microsoft isn't paying Apple for the use of the data plan. That money goes to ATT...They aren't paying RIM for the data plan either...Once again, it's going to the carrier that the phone is on...So they aren't really helping the competition, because Microsoft isn't in competition with phone carriers.

[darkr]

actually it does
RIM and apple both get a cut of the dataplan charges hence why apple and blackberry plans are more expencive then a smartphone dataplan costs 25bucks for regular palm or ms plan vs apple's 35bucks a month dataplan (rogers) at&t has been widely critized for charging more for iphone specific plans

(at least 10bucks more)

and its widely known that apple asks for a huge premium off the profits more from carriers then motorola and other companies

ALOT OF CELLPHONE manufacturing companies DONOT make money on the hardware Nokia loses cause they charge too much for example 700bucks for a old n95 phone 3years older then the iphone without contract and 250bucks with a data contract
a Iphone is cheaper then that but they make more cause of the dataplan charges

they make money on the cellphone plans thats why they subsidize the phones to make the plans attractive

[ratm247]

plus if they have to use their own shoddy products theyll be more motivated to make something good.

[robvme]

Uh, unless Microsoft actually gets the bill for the phone, how the hell are they going to know what phone or what plan you are on? They aren't. The real policy while speaks to competitor phones, really is a company wide limit imposed on all cell phone and broadband use. If you are not classified as a mobile or home employee you are limited to $75/month for your cell phone and don't get reimbursed for broadband wireless or otherwise. If you are a mobile employee then your combined expenses allowed is $135/month.

Fact is, by creating this policy more MSFT employees are going to feel empowered to buy what they want to use because they now have to pay out of pocket. I know plenty that switched from a Windows Smartphone to Black Berry and iPhone after this was announced.