iPod Invades Redmond

One can only chuckle at this.

Apple's iPod is infecting every corner of the world including, to Microsoft's dismay, its own corporate campus.

"About 80 percent of Microsoft employees who have a portable music player have an iPod," one high-level manager who asked to remain anonymous told Wired "It's pretty staggering."

That translates into about 16,000 iPods on Microsoft's Redmond, WA campus that's home to 25,000 employees. In an after to curtail the white headphone trend, Microsoft executives have taken to sending out memos frowning on iPod use. After hearing the nearby Apple retail store was selling out of hundreds of iPods regularly, Dave Fester, general manager of the Windows Digital Media division, sent a note to the group saying "I sure hope Microsoft employees are not buying iPods. We have great alternatives. . . ."

Uh huh.