Today, i had the pleasure of visiting Microsoft in Dublin for a bit of MS brainwashing 😆
It was a good day out, and pretty interesting, as we got a talk from 3 MS employees on different areas/products.
We also got a brief tour around one of the buildings and free sandwhiches/drinks provided by MS, so that was nice of them.
Unfortunately, no pictures. They’re tight on security/photography so THAT’S why there were no pictures or video on the net when i went searching for them 😉
Here’s a shot of one of their buildings though *shhhh* don’t tell anyone 🙂
I did get a name badge for the day, but had to give it back 👿 The only souvenir i got was this free can of Fanta 😆
Anyway, we got a sneak preview of some cool emerging technologies like photosynth, silverlight, popfly and surface. I’d heard of all of these bar photosynth, which looks pretty cool i have to admit, although i don’t think it’s anywhere near completion and will be another few years away.
Photosynth takes hundreds of images and mashes them up to create a 3d modelling system which you can rotate/revolve 360 degrees and look at from all angles. Here’s a video preview;
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=p16frKJLVi0[/youtube]
A lot of this stuff is WOW technology i.e. it looks impressive and works well in theory, but in reality, it just won’t work or won’t become mainstream.
MS surface a perfect example. I’m telling you now it will fall flat on it’s face. That’s my own opinion, obviously MS don’t share that view 😉 What happens if you spill a glass of sticky beer on the table.. can it be cleaned easily, is it 100% waterproof, does it have a backup powersource in the event of power failure (don’t forget it has the ability to take credit card details etc..), does it auto clear cache / history? will it run all versions of bluetooth, will it be backwards compatable, where’s the training for staff going to come from, where’s the support gonna be at, how does it store data for hundreds of clients, does it have a harddrive or does it use remote servers, if so what sort of connection speeds does it need etc…
It’s just too much at present. We have problems at ATM machines and touchscreen ticket machines… how the hell are customers and employees gonna get the hang of all of this fancy finger touch stuff.
I still know plenty of people who can’t work a mobile phone or a standard TV remote control. I’m not talking ‘old’ here either, in their 40’s.
Anyway, i had a good day as did the rest of the group, well worth the trip up 😎 Some other things of note were that they have a 24/7 gym on site, but employees have to PAY €100 to join (a bit mean imo). Employee’s also only get a discount on software – i’d have thought they’d give free software out to employees. Average age is 35 with a 60:40 male:female workforce.