Microsoft criticised for obscene dance act at conference
The computer giant founded by Bill Gates has been forced to apologise to staff and customers after an event to celebrate its Azure cloud computing platform featured a vulgar routine littered with references to sex and drugs.
The “dancing Azure girls” sang obscene lyrics such as: “The words ‘Micro’ and ‘Soft’ don’t apply to my p----”, and references to programmers coding “fast” and “hard”.
Another line referred to programming languages as drugs. “I use CCS as my LSD, and XML is my ecstasy,” sang the girls, as they gyrated to techno music in tiny hotpants, at a European developers’ conference in Oslo, Norway.
The words were also flashed up on screens around the stage throughout the performance.
The event was intended to mark a significant set of updates to its Windows Azure platform but has instead sparked anger amongst delegates.
Aral Balkan, a prominent developer who lives in Brighton and the keynote speaker at the conference, described it as a “car crash” for Microsoft and evidence that it is “still clueless” about what constitutes appropriate corporate behaviour.
The developer challenged organisers over the sexist content ahead of the Azure girls’ performance, but it is understood the only amendment they made was to some of the lyrics that appeared on screen so that they would apply to female developers as well as male ones.
In an apparent attempt to be inclusive, they tweaked the written lyrics to read: “The words ‘Micro’ and ‘Soft’ don’t apply to my p---- (or v----).”
However, the bizarre attempt to be inclusive towards the few women in attendance backfired.
Meg Natraj, one of the female developers at the conference, expressed her outrage on Twitter. “It became, ‘We don’t really THINK/care about women, but we have to put this in so that no one can complain that we excluded them,” she wrote. “Being marginalised as an afterthought hurts more than being forgotten. The latter is incompetence; the former is disregard.”
Microsoft eventually apologised for the Azure girls’ performance, admitting it included “vulgar language, was inappropriate and was just not ok”.
However, the incident has compounded Microsoft’s image as one of the last bastions of antiquated corporate behaviour.
The computer giant has been struggling to shake off allegations of a culture of sexism and loutish behaviour amongst its UK employees, since a High Court battle exposed an apparent culture of “excessive drunkenness” and “outrageous behaviour” last year.
The case, brought by former executive Simon Negus, against Gordon Frazer, who was managing director of the UK division until April this year, has been settled and al the charges dropped, but it nonetheless lifted the lid on apparently wild behaviour by Microsoft staff.
One Microsoft Global Exchange conference in Atlanta was described a “throbbing mass” of drunken punch-ups, sexual liaisons, fuelled by an unlimited supply of neat spirits.
Source: Microsoft criticised for obscene dance act at conference - Telegraph
No wonder Microtulip is going downhill.
The computer giant founded by Bill Gates has been forced to apologise to staff and customers after an event to celebrate its Azure cloud computing platform featured a vulgar routine littered with references to sex and drugs.
The “dancing Azure girls” sang obscene lyrics such as: “The words ‘Micro’ and ‘Soft’ don’t apply to my p----”, and references to programmers coding “fast” and “hard”.
Another line referred to programming languages as drugs. “I use CCS as my LSD, and XML is my ecstasy,” sang the girls, as they gyrated to techno music in tiny hotpants, at a European developers’ conference in Oslo, Norway.
The words were also flashed up on screens around the stage throughout the performance.
The event was intended to mark a significant set of updates to its Windows Azure platform but has instead sparked anger amongst delegates.
Aral Balkan, a prominent developer who lives in Brighton and the keynote speaker at the conference, described it as a “car crash” for Microsoft and evidence that it is “still clueless” about what constitutes appropriate corporate behaviour.
The developer challenged organisers over the sexist content ahead of the Azure girls’ performance, but it is understood the only amendment they made was to some of the lyrics that appeared on screen so that they would apply to female developers as well as male ones.
In an apparent attempt to be inclusive, they tweaked the written lyrics to read: “The words ‘Micro’ and ‘Soft’ don’t apply to my p---- (or v----).”
However, the bizarre attempt to be inclusive towards the few women in attendance backfired.
Meg Natraj, one of the female developers at the conference, expressed her outrage on Twitter. “It became, ‘We don’t really THINK/care about women, but we have to put this in so that no one can complain that we excluded them,” she wrote. “Being marginalised as an afterthought hurts more than being forgotten. The latter is incompetence; the former is disregard.”
Microsoft eventually apologised for the Azure girls’ performance, admitting it included “vulgar language, was inappropriate and was just not ok”.
However, the incident has compounded Microsoft’s image as one of the last bastions of antiquated corporate behaviour.
The computer giant has been struggling to shake off allegations of a culture of sexism and loutish behaviour amongst its UK employees, since a High Court battle exposed an apparent culture of “excessive drunkenness” and “outrageous behaviour” last year.
The case, brought by former executive Simon Negus, against Gordon Frazer, who was managing director of the UK division until April this year, has been settled and al the charges dropped, but it nonetheless lifted the lid on apparently wild behaviour by Microsoft staff.
One Microsoft Global Exchange conference in Atlanta was described a “throbbing mass” of drunken punch-ups, sexual liaisons, fuelled by an unlimited supply of neat spirits.
Source: Microsoft criticised for obscene dance act at conference - Telegraph
No wonder Microtulip is going downhill.
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