Microsoft

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Tour of Microsoft Campus, Redmond

For a billion dollar company our visit to Microsoft was surprising. There were several occasions during the morning that we nearly walked out. Anyway, not to dwell on the negatives we did eventually get into the technology centre that is set up with examples of how Microsoft think we will be working in the next 5-7 years.

The confidentiality paper we had to sign to be allowed in means I better not describe in detail what we saw on this blog. There were some software items and ideas that would be incredibly cool if they pull them off. Of course adoption in UK Universities may take much longer.

The physical layout of the "office of the future" display was surprising for the lack of technology. There were funky surfaces in group break out areas that you could write on but they were just attractively designed white boards. There was not one smart board in the whole installation. Nicely designed layouts that accommodate a variety of working styles including spaces designed for home workers or sales staff without permanent desks or offices. I took special interest in these having made myself homeless at QM before I left the UK.

At my last visit to Microsoft in 1991 there were about 8,000 employees in Seattle now it is more like 45,000. Microsoft is just building a new site west of original campus that includes learning centre facilities for staff training & development that can accommodate 1500 trainees at any one time.

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Comments

[Catrin]

Tell me!
Why did you nearly walk out? Or is that covered by the confidentiality agreement?

[umyl026]

OK
Just that the people sent to escort us did not know their way around so they kept getting lost and the result was were taken from one building lobby to another. Security levels meant we could not get through doors to where we needed to be and we were left hanging around for literally hours. We arrived at 9.30am and by 1pm we'd had 30 mins of 'contact' time with some one telling us something interesting. It was shambolic. If it had been organised properly we could have been in and out in 90mins but we wasted most of the day just hanging around in lobbys.