14 DAY TRIAL // Marissa Mayer is giving every Yahoo! employee a state-of-the-art smartphone, preferably the iPhone 5, if you ask the CEO. Mayer has sent out a note to employees asking them to choose the device / OS of their liking, seemingly recommending Apple’s latest iPhone as the best choice.
As CEO of the struggling Internet company (and by “struggling” we mean they’re only making billions in annual revenue), Mayer has been treating staffers rather well lately.
The chief executive now wants every employee to use what the public is using. Her argument is that Yahoo! needs to get into the mindset of the consumer. And she’s probably right. Thing is, she’s also a sworn fan of Apple’s solutions. Which means her latest note to employees is somewhat biased.
“We have a very exciting update to share with you today – we are announcing Yahoo! Smart Phones, Smart Fun! As of today, Yahoo is moving off of blackberries as our corporate phones and on to smartphones in 22 countries,” Mayer told employees.
“A few weeks ago, we said that we would look into smartphone penetration rates globally and take those rates into account when deciding on corporate phones. Ideally, we’d like our employees to have devices similar to our users, so we can think and work as the majority of our users do,” Mayer wrote.
The snippet includes a choice of devices with the promise that Yahoo! will take care of the monthly plans for data, voice, and SMS.
The smartphone choices begin with the Apple iPhone 5, followed by Android phones like the Samsung Galaxy S3, HTC One X, HTC EVO 4G LTE, and Windows Phone 8 device – the Nokia Lumia 920.
Yahoo! has probably already placed orders for thousands of iPhone 5 units from Apple, meaning your three-week waiting time might well be caused by Mrs. Mayer.
Jokes aside, it’ll be interesting to see how many Apple fans are employed at Yahoo!. The same goes for the other phone brands / OSes.