MS Office Party

Somewhere last Sunday after having seen Raikkonen win the French Grand Prix, I walked into the lobby to be greeted by Microsoft logo's all over the place. As if having been bombarded by iPhone news over the previous days wasn't enough.

Talking about that iPhone. Could you believe those Mac-heads (those that get religious about how good all the white hardware is and that think that Steve Jobs - the other Bill Gates - is the reincarnation of Elvis and Einstein in one) have been sleeping in front of Apple stores for 5 days just to get their hands on an iPhone? 5 days??? Do you realise how long that is in order to spend USD 600 and be stuck to America's worst mobile network provider for at least two years?

I just loved that news item with that chubby guy (see photo) that was the first one in NY to buy one. He actually lives in San Francisco (!) and decided he couldn't wait for the San Fransissy Apple store to open, so he took up half of his annual leave days to do 5 on 5 (that's five days on 5th Avenue). When he got his phone he was jumping, cheering, screaming (probably the most exercise he got in at least 10 years) and the best part? Everybody was applauding him as if he just found Bin Laden! Hooray for the nerdy chubster!

(Ladies, he's single. And he has one of the first of Apple's new wondertoys)

But back to the other nerds. It turned out that the hotel was hosting an internal regional Microsoft conference. Yes, internal! Meaning that after having been surrounded the previous week by over-zealous meat-heads protecting not-Barbara, I could now expect a bunch of geeks wearing company polos and jackets to roam around the hotel lobby with their laptops comparing their IRQ settings (whatever that is) and looking for the precise location for the best WiFi coverage. I was wrong...

The conference started Sunday evening with MS-Staff checking in the hotel, followed by a welcome MS-Buffet dinner. So far so good. nothing special. Your regular conference. There was even some bandwidth left for me!

Monday things started getting rowdier. When I returned from the bank, the entire MS-Hotel bar was packed with MS-People. Normally that bar is empty, apart from a few elderly European male business travellers -often accompanied by some young local girl - sit there, drinking whiskey and preparing for the activities to follow (Nasty thing, I know. Typical third world scene).

Enough about those dirty ol' men. Let's get back to the Gates Group. After their warm up drinks they almost reluctantly went for their dinner buffet. That's where the MS-Foundation was created for the rest of the night. It was party party party! The MS-Disc Jockey was playing the beats (not using iPods, mind you!) in the big party tent, erected in the hotel garden especially for the MS-Crew. They were partying as if the iPhone was never released!

These guys must have been the commercial sales staff of that company. Because, if these people were really the ones actually designing and developing the software, we would all be operating on MS-Fiesta instead of Vista with the MS Office Party package containing cool software called MS Word Up!, MS Powerjoint, MS Stoutlook (or Foutlook) and of course, our favourite spread(-sheet) MS Sexcel. Don't forget to install a proper anti-virus tool before using this software! And those of you for whom the standard party edition if not enough, you can upgrade to the pro party version containing MS Excess...

This lasted three days. The way these people were behaving I'm pretty sure no one pressed the Home button. It was Up- and Download all the way!

PS: I know. This entire blog entry is full of Nerd humour. Well, I guess I'm a bit of a nerd too. But if you smiled at least once while reading this piece, then you are at the very least a little bit nerdy too. Don't worry, that is not bad. Just get yourself an iPhone and you'll be cool as a Dutch summer!

PS2: by the way, check out the miPhone! It's the Mozambican equivalent of the gadget that has got everyone going nuts! All you need is an iPod and this cool accessory.