It allegedly announces ban on buying Apple products using company funds

Mar 21, 2012 13:49 GMT  ·  By
Microsoft reportedly plans on banning purchases of Apple products with company funds
   Microsoft reportedly plans on banning purchases of Apple products with company funds

Microsoft is reportedly putting in place a new policy through which it wants to prevent its employees from purchasing Apple products with company’s funds.

The new ruling is expected to be put in place for Microsoft’s Sales, Marketing, Services, IT, & Operations Group (SMSG).

What appears to be an internal email from Alain Crozier, the chief financial officer of SMSG to the company’s employees unveils exactly that.

The message was addressed to the over 46,000 Microsoft employees that are part of SMSG worldwide, as ZDNet’s May Jo Foley found on the Microsoft Careers page about the group.

Among these employees, we can count Microsoft’s front-line consumer and business sales, service and support people. The new policy was reportedly announced last week.

Here’s what the said email, entitled Apple Purchases, stated:

Within SMSG we are putting in place a new policy that says that Apple products (Mac & iPad) should not be purchased with company funds.

In the US we will be turning off the Apple products from the Zones Catalog next week, which is the standard purchasing mechanism for these products.

Outside of the US — we will work with your finance and procurement teams to send the right message and put the right processes in place.

The current purchase levels are low, however we recognize there will be a bit of transition work associated with this. Details of historical purchases in the US are provided in the attachment to help understand the changes that will be needed. Thank you for your support and leadership on this.

Microsoft hasn’t provided a comment on the matter, neither confirming nor denying the move. However, it would not come as a surprise if they did inform their employees to no longer purchase Mac and iPad devices using company’s funds, since it had similar rules in place before.

Until now, the Redmond-based software giant hasn’t tried to determine its employees to use only Windows Phones and PCs powered by Windows, but it might do so in the future.