>The perils of being an iPhone user at Microsoft were on display last September. At an all- company meeting in a Seattle sports stadium, one hapless employee us

>The perils of being an iPhone user at Microsoft were on display last September. At an all- company meeting in a Seattle sports stadium, one hapless employee used his iPhone to snap photos of Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer. Mr. Ballmer snatched the iPhone out of the employee's hands, placed it on the ground and pretended to stomp on it in front of thousands of Microsoft workers, according to people present. I was present for this. It was a self-deprecating joke, not an actual admonition, and Ballmer later addressed the fact that Microsoft just isn't competitive in mobile right now, and tried to hype up Windows Mobile 7 (as it was then known). I worked at MSFT last summer, and I had an iPhone. So did my (full time) office mate. So did my mentor. I think my team's dev lead did too. Probably around 40-50% of my team did. It wasn't frowned upon at all. I also used Opera on my work machines and the most I encountered was curiosity. Every time one of these "Microsofties can't use competitors' products" articles comes up I find it really frustrating, because it's at best an inaccurate generalization.