Tales from the Mac Lab Unit at Microsoft

I have a close friend that use to work at Microsoft. He told me once about its testing lab and how it was filled floor to ceiling with PCs that were used for testing. I can’t remember the exact number of boxes he said they had, but it was well over a couple of a hundred. What fascinated me about this lab was how after testing all night, an automated process would wipe out the hard drive of every PC and copy over a fresh image of the various versions of Windows. New fresh start every day for buggy code. :)

David Weiss works in one such lab but with a major difference. Instead of Dells, HPs, eMachines, and such, this lab has only Mac hardware. Even more amazing his Weiss’ statement that the lab, “had every significant hardware revision Apple has ever released since the dawn of time,” just up to a few short months ago! Yes, that means they had the original Macintosh, Macintosh SE, Macintosh SE/30, Macintosh Classic, Macintosh Centris 610, Macintosh IIci, Macintosh IIsi, Power Macintosh 7100/66, Power Macintosh 7100/80, Power Macintosh 7500/100, Quadra 650, Power Macintosh G3, Duo Dock with Powerbook Duo 2300c, and even a non-Apple product, the Power Computing PowerCenter Pro 210. Man, what I’d do for that original Mac or the Power Computing unit. I have fond memories of the SE/30 (my first Mac I worked on daily) and my close friend and graphics guy, Roger, had a Quadra 650. Oh ya, that Powerbook Duo would be nice to have.

Weiss takes you on a personal tour of the Mac Business Unit at Microsoft that usually only MVPs get. He walks you through from the front door, through the room that has over 150 Mac minis, through the lab of 249 other Macs, as well as showing you the 7ft cages of Xserves. One misbehaving one was racked into a Dell cage, though. Ouch! You also get to see the various 3rd party software library (man, I’ve seen Apple Stores with less software on its shelves!) as well as the room filled with tons of printers for testing. Oh ya, the geek in me loves the “hallway” which is walled by the back ends of all the Macs. All those Ethernet cables make me really want to work there. Oh ya, its in Washington. Okay, forget that. :)

Drop by Weiss’ page and take a look at all the really incredible stuff Microsoft is doing with Macs. See the lab boys use Apple Remote Desktop like most will never use it and smile knowing that even Redmond gets to use the coolest computer on Earth. :)

[tags]microsoft,mac business unit,mbu,tour,tons of macs[/tags]