Microsoft burgled, only the APPLE iPADS stolen - cops confirm A savvy sneak slipped into a Microsoft campus, stole five iPads and left all the Microsoft products untouched, according to cops. More than $3,000 in Apple kit was nicked from the research and development complex in Mountain View, California, over Christmas. There was no sign of a forced entry at Building 5 on La Avenida …
Oh and Eric Schmidt is a wonderful guy is he?
He used to work for shit boring Novell. He's in North Korea, one of the axes of evil. He only gives a shit about grabbing your money and couldn't give a stuff about paying taxes.
Elop is a good CEO, many Nokia users who have written to him with problems have received free gifts and help. Try emailing Schmidt, would probably be out playing golf or something. Steve Jobs would have said "hold it differently".
>Oh and Eric Schmidt is a wonderful guy is he?
Hmm so everybody who criticizes Microsoft or their ho hum me too products is now automatically an Android or Apple fanboi eh? Not everyone believes in corporate tribes (most outside of middle school in fact). Some of us just look at electronics as tools and select the one that best meets our needs for the right price.
Indeed, this is nothing more than a troll / press release masquerading as news - people may dislike MS, but seriously, you want to advertise for let's-destroy-the-most-successful-Open-Source-operating-system-with-software-patents Apple?
If they only took five items, it seems clear it was a targeted theft. And as noted in the other recent story[*], this may be because they're expensive, and there will be a minority who will pay any price for them, plus unlike many makes, they only do expensive products, so it's an easier target.
Given that thieves typically steal to sell, this tells us nothing about what is desired, but what people can sell at a high price. So Apple win on that - big deal. And whilst I'm sure the spin is "people don't want MS even for free", the flipside is that it says these people are only willing to take Apple if they give it for free (also see the ridiculous numbers of "win a free ipad" competitions).
The other point is that these stories only get reported when it favours Apple.
[*] What is it about all these recent "Thieves stealing Apple products" stories? Seems some kind of desperate marketing attempt to make the products look popular. Even the local news here was at it, reporting on burglaries, but then mentioning only Apple brand names by name - any other makes just get ignored, or don't get reported.
Actually it's like the animal liberationists who break into labs to free lab animals. Fanbois broke in and liberated the iPads to stop evil Microsoft scientist performing unholy experiments on them.
Unfortuantely like in the horror movies these iPads are already infected and will wreak havok on the fanboi population.
Muhahahahahaha
Many years ago, a company I worked for had offices in a really out-of-town (nearest store 1mile) technology park.
One day we had a frantic phone call from the office manager. Thieves had broken into our offices, and then used our computers to break the windows into the office across the hall, and steal their computers.
If you read the article;
"....Microsoft reported the crime to the police on 2 January but believes the electronics were stolen between 19 and 26 December....."
Looks like the iPads weren't that cool seeing as no-one noticed they had gone for up to fourteen days.
Microsoft has some evidence as to when the crime occurred and someone sat on it at the request of the PR department. They needed to come up with a story to which they couldn't think of one. I think the thieves should have left a Zune behind.
I heard Ballmer felt so bad, that he offered a new Surface to replace the four iPads that got stolen.
What were Microsoft stealing from the iPads?
Nothing, The were checking to see what crApple had stolen from them.
ref: "We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas" — Steve Jobs, Triumph of the Nerds, 1996 (youtube link)
It's all about price. Apple kit sells at several thousand times the manufacturing price, hence a lot of room for stolen half-price kit on the black market: cheap enough to be a good buy despite the risk. Ignoring the surface for this argument, you can buy or build a windows computer for, well, the price of its part on the Chinese market. 400 bucks will get you a very decent windows office machine. factoring in the labour cost of physically removing the machines from MS headquarters, you can't possibly beat that. A basic Windows PC is cheaper to buy than to steal. Then there is value-to-volume and weight: ratios: the thieves could have stolen one full-size rack of spanking new servers, used heavy machinery to move it to a rather large van. Instead they choose to steal the same resale-value kit that fits in a briefcase.
Also, reselling beasty servers is harder and more suspicious than reselling "Oh I got it for Xmas but I don't like it that much" iPads...
I never denied THAT. Just that "several thousand times" is just dumb. Note the thumbs down from the Fandroids and the Winsheep.
Nah, you're getting voted down because you're coming across as someone who is so literal-minded that he can't appreciate the use of ironic exaggeration to emphasize a point.
> the Fandroids and the Winsheep.
just for the record, I mildly hate MSWindows (my work involves tech support for MSWinLusers... so I'm paid for MS' flaws, in a way; hence the "mildly"). I never ever owned an iOS device but I still have to fix these for friends; and I never ever owned an Android device, or had to fix one. My real machines mostly run Debian or OpenBSD, and my toys (handhelds, etc) run either obscure Linux distros (for the most powerful ones) or fully machine-programmed OSes (for the more ressource-limited ones). Excluding my work machines, I do not use any internal hard drive larger than 20 GB. I am a sad geek indeed.
And Apple ipads, the most overhyped product in existence even before its release, took years to get anywhere (it was 6 months before I saw a single one). And the original iphone only sold half a dozen (see? I can make stuff up too - or more accurately, they sold way less than Symbian, Blackberry, and even WM).
Seriously - I get that people here don't like tablets and MS, yet then you find they support *Apple*?
You're right on the first paragraph, which is why this pro-Apple-spin is a non-story.
"There was no sign of a forced entry at Building 5 on La Avenida Street, whose staff use electronic cards to enter the offices, said Sgt Sean Thompson."
and
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20020541-71.html
Elementary Dr Watson: it was an inside job.
Melinda is putting her foot down.
This is a funny story, but it kind of makes you feel bad for Microsoft, who can't seem to do a single thing right these days.
Over the holiday, I was at two shopping centers that had both a microsoft store and an apple store, and I felt so sorry for the guys working the microsoft store (the staff WAY outnumbered the customers, while at the apple store, you could hardly get in the door it was so packed) that I almost bought a surface out of pity. ALMOST.
Before Christmas the Apple store in Southampton was so horrific that I ended up getting my iPad in Tesco instead. Same price + double clubcard points!
Mind you, half the problem with the Apple store is the crowd of students outside leeching the free wi-fi. One was just walking around in the main thoroughfare with giant headphones on, oblivious to everyone, and talking to someone using the video conference app.
I used to shop at that store in Southampton. Until one of the Apple employees suggested I go buy the kit a couple of shops down in John Lewis where they are happy to give you a two year warranty, and will not not need threatening with the law should you need to use it. A jolly helpful apple drone - I was surprised.
...when a New Orleans Saints fan, fed up with the team's consistently poor performance, deliberately left his season tickets on the dashboard of his car with the door unlocked, in the hopes they'd be stolen. When he returned some hours later, he found that someone had entered his car and left a second set of Saints season tickets on the dashboard next to his own.
No, seriously, New Orleans really was playing that badly back then.
They left the MS products because they are too hard to fence. If the police stopped every one with a Surface, the thieves wold be caught in no time at all; probably would only need to stop about 10 people or so before the stolen goods were found.
I bet the footage shows it was Ballmer. He is probably out in some field going Office Space on them.
As the saying goes, Second prize is a week in (name your ugly town), and first prize, you ask? That is TWO weeks in (name your ugly town).
So, second prize in this case is a Surface tablet, and first prize is many Surface tablets. Not an iPad to be seen!
Maybe thieves do have smarts, but I doubt it!
It's a shame it's not as funny when you read the context -
"the place where Microsoft, whose headquarters are in Redmond, develops software for Apple hardware. It's possible the thief has got hold of some unreleased Microsoft apps with his or her Apple devices. The office also houses Microsoft Exchange hosting servers, a less tempting target for a light-fingered thief."
So they got into a place which left them a choice of tablets, probably all of them were Apple, or the alternative was some probably rack mounted servers. It's an easy choice for a thief.
They are the true wealth creators. Without them, nothing would happen. Ever. They deserve our total adoration and we must continue giving them even larger amounts of money and other gifts. Otherwise, these Gods will frown on us and deliver thunderbolts from the skies, pestilence on our farms and plagues on our houses.
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