Manager tells journalists not to use or mention Apple products at Windows Mobile event

steve_ballmer

Forehead arteries pulsing dangerously beneath purpling and apocalyptic skin stretched taut, a Microsoft manager recently told journalists not to use or even mention Apple products at a Windows Mobile event in Germany.

Eyeballs bulging out of his skull like the enraged ocular twins of his every spitted umlaut, the manager rebuked a journalist who had dared to opine over dinner that there has never been an easier-to-use smartphone than the iPhone.

“This is a Microsoft event,” the manager shouted. “Apple products have no business being here!”

Silence followed, during which onlookers tried to decide for themselves whether or not the eruption was meant as a joke, in which case it was safe to laugh, or as the prelude to some sort of stabbing frenzy.

Germans, however, are not fans of ambiguity. “I’m serious about it!” the manager clarified with a dark and terrible glower.

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Just one mid-level Windows Mobile manager’s overblown and self-righteous overreaction to the elephant in the room? Almost definitely. But as a tech journalist, I have to say, I hope this doesn’t mark the beginning of a company-wide “final solution” to the problem of Apple products being used to cover Microsoft events. I picture an ocean of MacBook-toting bloggers looking over to the chained doors of some Las Vegas Convention Center hall, just as several dozen hooded Microsoft representatives pull machine guns from their robes and aim them at the audience while Steve Ballmer maniacally shouts down from the stage: “Jetzt! Schnell!”

[via Daring Fireball]

About the author

John BrownleeJohn Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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  • http://ObamaPacman.com Obama Pacman

    ROTL. Most hilarious interpretation of the event I’ve read. =)

  • http://www.grinningidiot.com JAYnLA

    I think dissenters should loudly munch on apples all through Microsoft’s next presentation.

  • http://williesite.tk Willie

    @JAYnLA YES that would be hillarious

  • http://kpsnyder.com kpsnyder

    Suddently, I’m envisioning a sea of netbook hackintoshes at the next Microsoft PR event.

  • http://ObamaPacman.com Obama Pacman

    At the next event, should bring in a box of sand, a stick, and an Apple. They can write in the sand with the stick, and eat apples.

    Oops meant ROTF.

  • Fuzzypig

    LOL!

    Well tough, can’t help it if the Apple kit is way better than that cheap’n'cheerful Windows tosh!

    Brilliant!

  • Michael Allen

    You know what’s funny? When I was working at Microsoft, before the bastards laid me off with thousands of other folks, the department I was in had more MacBooks than any other notebook. Granted, most everyone was using Boot Camp to run Windows, but it was still all MacBooks and iPhones/iPods. Zunes were an afterthought and I think the only people that had them were the ones who received them as swag at some internal event.
    I’ve always said, if Microsoft wants to compete with Apple, all they need to do is make a better product. It really is that simple. It worked for Apple. :)

  • FeralFreq

    That Mac-resplendent photo of laptops standing at attention at the Windows media event must’ve gotten under some nerves! (snorfle)

  • http://www.herbaled.org Ed Smith – USA

    What self-respecting journalist of the “free” press would put up with such B.S.?

  • Jujolone

    “Forehead arteries pulsing dangerously beneath purpling and apocalyptic skin stretched taut …

    … Eyeballs bulging out of his skull like the enraged ocular twins of his every spitted umlaut”

    Great!!

  • Anonymous

    LOOOL