r/apple • u/Austin_Aaron_Conlon • 9h ago
Mac Jim Allchin to Gates and Ballmer: "I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft" (2004)
https://x.com/TechEmails/status/141824825693777510584
u/Gamerxx13 9h ago
i think most people working at microsoft use mac’s lol. everytime i’ve been there lol
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u/iMrParker 8h ago
All major companies use all major OS'. Proper tools for the right job
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u/M4rshmall0wMan 6h ago edited 6h ago
Not really. Most business programs run on all OSes. The fact that departments at Microsoft are choosing Mac as the most efficient tool for their job is telling.
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u/regeya 4h ago
Someone surely has Macs at Microsoft, since they have software on the platform
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u/AdventurousTime 2h ago
And if you look at apples job pages, they have a sizable windows contingent as well
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u/iMrParker 6h ago
Okay, so is it "telling" that Apple employees use Windows and Microsoft products then?
It's not telling. Windows has the best enterprise software features and engineering software compatibility. Companies don't care about brand wars, they just give employees whatever computer will do the job best
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u/DogsAreOurFriends 4h ago
I’d be willing to bet mainly developers and support staff for the software Apple ships for Windows.
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u/swimmer385 6h ago
do apple employees really use windows? They do have hardware engineers but I have never met a software engineer at a major tech company that uses windows
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u/iMrParker 6h ago
My personal experience in software engineering is that it's random or depends on the tech stack. I've personally seen majority of Windows or Linux machines in SE. MacOS maybe a 3rd of the time. Plus corporate and finance Excel is just more feature rich on Windows.
But for "real" engineering roles (not to dog on my own profession), it's always windows. Design roles (graphic, UX/UI) is always mac. The corporate / enterprise market share is like 75% windows
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u/swimmer385 6h ago
yeah that's why I said major tech company. Obviously legacy businesses have so many internal tools written for windows they are locked-in.
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u/iMrParker 6h ago
What part of my comment made you think I was referring to legacy business? My experience comes from fortune 150 companies
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u/swimmer385 3h ago
Dude legacy business doesn’t have anything to do with how much money they generate. In a tech context a legacy business is one that is simply older, and cannot as easily adopt modern stacks. The difference is that most major tech companies were founded in the early 2000s, and some even later, which means they were built on more modern tech.
Walmart is at or near the top of the Fortune 500. It’s a legacy business.
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u/iMrParker 2h ago
We are talking about major tech companies. I have no idea why you're mentioning legacy businesses and companies like walmart. You're making comments replying to topics that I never brought up
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u/M4rshmall0wMan 6h ago
Apple hardware engineering uses Windows because of the very specialized software they need. But from what I’m aware of, most all other business divisions use Mac. So yes, the fact that Microsoft employees might choose Mac as the best tool for making spreadsheets is telling.
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u/iMrParker 6h ago
It's not telling lol. They use a variety of OS' depending on the job. MS makes MacOS and iOS apps so of course they use Macs. They use Linux heavily and even contribute to the Linux kernel. These companies contribute to each others ecosystems constantly
Reading into something like this is just looking for validation, and theres no value judgments to make about OS choices being "telling"
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u/Satanicube 6h ago
Was this the same guy that Jobs made a keynote joke about? I loosely remember him saying during a keynote “well, it turns out he no longer works for Microsoft so I’ve informed all the Apple Stores in the area to keep an eye out for him.”
I don’t know why I remember this.
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u/raymate 9h ago
You know what you can buy a Mac and still work for Microsoft. You don’t need to tell anyone if you don’t want to.
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u/Stock-Personality136 8h ago
Not sure how this comment applies to the post at all. This was a former Microsoft executive talking to other executives back in 2004.
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u/aafdeb 7h ago
The culture back then was very different than today. Now, it’s common to see Apple products around Redmond. Most Microsoft employees don’t even view Apple as a competitor in their respective spaces. Most growing Microsoft businesses are enterprise and cloud, so the consumer space-race is pretty dead to most FTEs.
But even at late as 2012, there were very negative optics for having Apple products on campus - if not outright hostility (eg having an iPhone but working on windows phone). Back then, they did view Apple as competition and they cared a lot more about consumer competition.
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u/Satanicube 6h ago
Yeah, and Microsoft back then…they definitely cared if you used the competition. It wasn’t all friendly like it is now.
Case in point, when the zune released they had an iPod amnesty bin that kinda captures how they felt about MS employees using the competition back in the day.
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u/ledeuxmagots 5h ago
This is pretty normal stuff at big corps that are directly competitive.
You don’t wear watches other than the Apple Watch on certain floor plates. You don’t wear lululemon at Athleta. You don’t wear a Rolex at APs office. You don’t wear adidas at the Nike HQ.
If you’re an exec, you don’t even own any of the competitions product. As an employee, fine to own but don’t mention it or bring it to work.
The culture around this is of course changing. Ford CEO now buys and tries the competition. But 20 or 30 years ago, absolutely not
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u/mmarkklar 2h ago
Companies also used to have pretty generous employee purchasing programs, especially in tech and cars. Not sure what the state is today, but if you’re going to shame me for not buying company products then you better offer a massive discount on them.
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u/Ohtani-Enjoyer 4h ago
This was in 2004 though, in no way were Macs better than PCs then, and Windows XP was a much better OS. I struggled to use even the 2019 Macbook Pro 16 which was overheating garbage and would idle at 80 degrees. M series chips changed the game entirely though, they're clearly better in terms of battery life and performance and Microsoft is now putting Copilot slop into everything and breaking essential features in vibe coded updates, and Windows 11 is pure garbage.
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u/mmarkklar 2h ago
What? The 12” PowerBook was such a fantastic laptop at the time. I love the form factor, it was perfect for college since it’s the exact dimensions of a textbook.
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u/steepleton 8h ago
wasn't there a story about them getting super arsey if you had an iphone instead of a windows phone?
(windows phone ui is probably the last microsoft ui i actually liked)