xbox

Microsoft Gen '05 at Southampton

Last Wednesday the Microsoft propaganda machine descended upon our campus at the University of Southampton to pimp their latest products to us. As part of their Academic Alliance they're pretty keen on getting us using everything Microsoft. The event was dubbed "Gen'05" although I'm not entirely sure what that's meant to mean. The banners read "creation generation events" which I guess is trying to be snazzy and cool. Inside there were a couple of stands showcasing the latest and greatest from everyone's favourite software company.

I found it a little interesting, although probably not in the way Microsoft was intending. There seemed to be a focus on moving away from the PC, with Xboxen set up, some media centre thing and some portable devices running Windows Embedded (or what have you) among a few other stands. All the products were running on no-name hardware, it didn't look like Microsoft had a single big or reputable named supporter for any of it's "visions". We didn't stay very long and only really had a little play with the handheld PCs; the handwriting recognition was absolutely atrocious. All in all I wasn't overly impressed but neither was I surprised, I don't really expect much from Microsoft.

Just before we left we had a quick chat with one of the recruiters who told us they were looking for marketing, sales and technical people, so we should be in with a chance! Lucky us. I can't say that the event or the marketing behind it has inspired me to work at Microsoft at all, so unfortuantly they're going to have to join the queue at the back. Sorry Microsoft!

Anyway, the only reason we went in to the event at all was to pick up one the free T-shirts they were handing out. We were told we would get one if we handed in a quick questionnaire on our way out, having looked around. So, we went in and walked around as we were told and handed over our details in exchange for our "reserved 4 gr8ness" t-shirts (very nice, don't you think?). Apparently handing over our details also entered us to a competition to win an Xbox. This morning, lo and behold, I got a call from Microsoft and it turns out I won the Xbox. yay me! These past couple of weeks are turning out to be pretty good and I'll soon be the owner of one ugly (but much appreciated) console.