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Google gives staff Christmas G1s
Author: Gareth HalfacreePublished: 23rd December 2008
While the G1 is a nice handset - and a free one isn't to be sniffed at - you can't help but think that any Google employee that wanted one would already own a unit.
According to CNet, the company has ditched the traditional holiday bonus payments in favour of giving staffers a free Android-based G1 smartphone. While the handset is a developer version – i.e. unlocked and not tied to a particular network – there are rules attached to the gift.
Gizmodo has got its hands on a list of questions and answers the company is including with the free G1 announcement, and it's interesting to see the number of limitations on the 'free' handset. One such question, which asks “what happens to my holiday bonus [if] I already have an Android phone” is answered with a strict warning that the handsets are “a personal gift [...] please do not resell them as this is against Google policy.” Which – you'll notice – doesn't actually answer the question: the answer being, of course, “you don't get a holiday bonus, bucko.”
The handsets will be provided to around 85 percent of the company's staff worldwide, with employees in nations unable to receive the G1 getting a more traditional cash gift instead.
While the move is clearly an effort to reduce costs at a difficult time, communications from Google to recipients explain that it also represents an opportunity to “dogfood a product” - in other words, to get all staff using the handsets in order to increase consumer awareness and encourage suggestions and improvements from employees. Whether the suggestions will take the form of “give us the cash instead” remains to be seen.
Do you think that the Googlers should be glad to get anything at all, or should Google stump up the traditional cash bonus and offer the G1 handsets as an option instead? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
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Mine would be sold in a heartbeat.
It's like a unicorn or something. Or a flying pig.
When I first read this title i thought... "they gave them f****ing planes????"
In the current market I believe its called "still being employed"
The 1kg of Pick N Mix, 8 cheesecakes and the box of chocolates in the office kitchen?
Failing that the knowledge that you now have an entire floor to yourself!
In 99+% of the companies I have worked for - bonus turns out to be two words.
john
My employer gave me a little sumthing sumthing and I've only been working there 3 months