New Microsoft hire: Forcing me from Mac to PC

[burgman]

Actually a bunch of Microsoft journalists have said it. The divisions inside of Microsoft don't talk to each other, and that is a big reason why Ballmer is out.

And how is that relevant to this tread??

 

[linkgx1]

Why would this even be an issue? Why take the job at Microsoft if you love Apple products so much?

Seriously, it's an easy solution. Just use iPhone outside of work. There's a lot of skill in knowing both operating systems because trust me, it's a life saver many times.

 

[Black Magic]

Thank you all so very much for the great advice...I read every post throughout the day, and kept going back & forth, but ultimately I decided:

1) I'm going to use my iPhone at home/in-car; And I bought a Lumia 920 to use at work.
2) At&t gave me the 411 on SIM-swapping, and unfortunately, I would lose visual voicemail, FaceTime, and would have to turn off iMessage every time. This is because I would have to switch from the iPhone Data plan to the Smartphone Data Plan in order to swap. It's not that big of a deal, but decided I'd just add a line to my data plan, and use the Windows phone exclusively for work.
3) I'm going to keep the iMac and just play-it-by ear on the efficiency of using bootcamp/Windows for work stuff I need to do at home, and the awesomeness of Mac for home usage.
4) I'm going to get rid of the MBA and just stick to the laptop they give me, but use my iPad for home media use (and maybe give the Surface Pro a try).

I think the majority of you agreed that a job is what pays the bills, and with a family of 5, it's tough to just say, "I'm going sell my house, & move my family to Cupertino because I am an Apple Fanboy" (not that they gave me a job). Microsoft is a great corporation and this is an awesome opportunity I was afforded, that many would love to have...I can suck it up and be a good company man, if it means they take care of me and my family, and I also get to work with some cool products & people.

Again, thank you all for the advice, and I will see you on the forums (while I'm in the MSFT bathroom or closet)

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Seriously?? There's 70k employees, my man...Not all of them are working on the windows phone, or even windows. I would doubt every one of those 70k employees has the same level of knowledge regarding Windows phones & PC's. Maybe I'm wrong...

My friend went to work for MS a few years back and he gave up his iPhone and they bought him a new Windows Phone. There is also a discount he gets for being at MS.

Me personally, I wouldn't give up anything. If they are going to buy me a new work phone and expense the monthly fees then that would be my work phone and I would keep my personal phone. Same with Laptops and PCs.

Congrats on your new job!

 

[aced411]

I have been on and off the campus plenty of times for training/projects etc and have friends that work there. Relax, don't get paranoid about it. If you like your iPhone, I wouldn't waste your time swapping out your SIM everyday (that can be problematic anyways). Just keep your iPhone. Don't make a big deal about it and if people make comments just smile or laugh it off and say something like "yeah those Windows Phones are pretty slick" and leave it at that.

Don't bring MacBooks or iPads to work and make sure you have a dedicated PC at home for exposure to the product line. This doesn't mean you have to trash all your macs and be a total "convert". People don't need to know you prefer Mac, but if a co-worker comes over and sees an iMac in your home office it won't be a big deal.

Lastly, if you're not a blue badge than don't make any changes. That's far too much of an investment if you're there on contract. Congrats on the new job!

 

[Internaut]

Well, congrats on the job. Me? I like to keep a healthy separation between my home life and work life. Even when I'm working at customer sites, where I can only bring the corporate Dell From Hell along, I prefer running a Linux VM (using Oracle Virtualbox as the host) for personal stuff (not to mention it lets me keep my corporate environment in line with corporate policy, while maintaining multiple lab environments).

Looking at what you've got.... Both your systems should be able to run Windows 7/8 dual boot, comfortably, though internal storage can be a bit limited on the Air. You should also be able to run Windows as a VM, though you'll obviously get a performance hit. For that, the more memory and the more cores you have, the better.

 

[monolithic]

Here are my questions:
1) Has anyone successfully integrated a Windows phone into their current iMac/Macbook combo, and have no problems adjusting/sync'ing apps & data on both platforms (generally speaking)?

2) If I had to replace the iMac/MBA, could anyone recommend PC desktop/ultrabooks that would be closely comparable to an iMac/MBA?
.

Microsoft has a Windows phone suite on Mac app store. Just search for 'Windows Phone' in the app store. It syncs with iTunes, iPhoto and regular stuff.