Microsoft hands out 90,000 Windows Phones to employees and PDC attendees
Santa Ballmer? Steve Claus? Neither nickname has a great ring to it, but Microsoft’s CEO definitely deserves something similar this holiday season. Network World confirmed Thursday that Microsoft will be handing out free Windows Phone 7 devices to each and every company employee — that’s about 89,000 phones. Add to that another 1,000 free WP7 handsets that will be passed out to Microsoft’s Professional Developer Conference attendees, and you’ve got quite an expense (likely over $20 million) that the Redmond giant is swallowing. You can’t put a price on publicity, however, and 90,000 free phones translates into a pretty huge amount of chatter. This is all well and good, but let’s hope the sizable stunt also ends up moving some product.
Zach Epstein
Zach Epstein is the Executive Editor of BGR. He has 10 years of industry experience, first in marketing and business development with two private Telcos, then as a writer and editor covering business, technology and telecommunications.
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