Microsoft gets Speedos in a twist over half-naked 'Meter Maids'
Microsoft has upset a bunch of bikini-clad Aussie “Meter Maids”, after a promotional stunt backfired on the company. The Sydney Morning Herald reported today that Microsoft had hired the women to appear at its TechEd conference on the Gold Coast. Some of the 2,700 attendees at the event grumbled that the half-naked ladies' …
So a microsoft representative spent "two to three weeks looking at photographs of the girls".. Nice work if you can get it ;)
In which case, they need to be hiring men to stand around in speedos, not women.
Given what I've seen on various beaches, *men* in Speedos is not a good view. IMHO, of course.
The posters for these swim trunks and Speedo-like swim briefs for men have stopped women in their tracks. I have seen this myself.
Trouble is, advertising IT with a strapping Aussie lad as bait, or having them trotting around a convention in their skivvies, would only lead to crashing disappointment once the IT women turned up on the job, to find the usual suspects in place, and probably seated next to the hygiene-shy mouth-breather who likes extra anchovy on his pizzas.
At least they brought some good looking girls- Apple would probably bring that effeminate guy that plays in their mickey mouse 'I'm a Mac' ads...
Then I suspect Mac would have send some sleek-looking women whom everyone privately desired.
However, they'd have significant disadvantages: (please ignore the rest of this post as I am now obliged to refer to exactly how you're allowed to touch the items in question and how many fingers you're supposed to use when you do it).
....with apologies to Ms Bee., who's bound to get all the flack if she lets this one go.
Microsoft managed to get more publicity for its dollar with this stunt. It's all over the newspapers. You can't buy publicity like that.
I personally agree with the theme of the conference that more women should be working in IT. Specifically, I want to see more women in gold bikinis working in IT.
"....I want to see more women in gold bikinis working in IT."
I read that and looked round the office.
Pass the mind bleach if you please.
I went to tech-ed in Berlin last year, but MS didn't lay on any bikini'd beauties there!
Move over to Aussie :) I assure you the climate is far more agreeable.
Fixed! I think this is a great idea and fully support it
Not necessarily - most of the women I know in IT are lesbians anyway, so maybe good looking women would be the thing to draw more women into IT. Or perhaps they're only lesbian when I ask them out. Who knows.
Paris... explanation really needed?
Ahhh that old chesnut. Proberly not, they just think you're a slimey, sad loser. Thats why they turn you down for drinks and offers of lunch dates.
The (few) women in our dept, about 50% are hotties and straight. The others are ok. Which I'm sure is a higher looker to minger ratio than us guys here.
I used to meet loads of lesbians before my gender reassignment surgery. Now, all the other chicks seem to be straight.
Mine's the one that buttons right-over-left.
that's just what they tell you to put you off. really they're so totally hot for you they're creaming their jeans fo' yo'
is your sample statistically valid?
I've always felt I was a lesbian trapped in a man's body.
I was once a man trapped in a lesbians body.
That took some explaining when we got to the emergency room.....
After hearing so many stories of how Microsoft warps things into One Microsoft Way( their street adress ) style, I wonder why any press org even attempts quoting them.
If they had their own Babel fish, it would have some kind of direct link to a Public Relations filter so that every word spoken was twisted into PR-speak with a requirement for no more than 5% truthfulness.
Seriously, they tried to claim they didn't know what they were going to be wearing? That's right, I now recall them telling a Federal Judge they hadn't edited a courtroom video for days until the prosecution proved they lied by noticing icons on the desktop changed throughout the video.
Way to go Microsoft, still acting like the same company after all these years.
"The garments were chosen specifically by them over a period of two to three weeks of them looking at photographs of the girls," she claimed.
Yeah... My God, does it take THAT much deliberating?
I thought the gold was nice however.
A bunch of Linux geeks standing around in Speedos - can't see how that would recruit *anyone* I'd want to be associated with.
Full disclosure: I only run Linux on my hardware.
Catch is that would attract only straight/bisexual women and gay/bisexual men. What you really need is a mix of both men and women in swimwear, with a ratio similar to that of straight to lesbian women in the populace. Bisexual women should be counted towards both totals for the sake of fairness.
Please don't discriminate against those with wider interests.
...There ain't no such thing as bisexuality, it's just greediness!
The aussies have been served already, don't overdo it.
then we could call them FAST? - premature mate!
What is this? Australia? Have their techies turned into feminist idealogues?
... that the generally youthful, overwhelmingly male ("One of the key talks at the conference had been a discussion about getting more women to join the IT industry...") IT crowd would be interested in gawking, er, uh, looking at scantily clad women.
I am so disgusted by this I'd like to learn more, to prevent this sort of thing from happening again, yeah, that's it.
How about a link to the pictures from other angles?
...and I don't mean the morality of using minimally attired ladies.
I mean the morality of lying, erroneosly blaming the innocent, lying again and then only coming clean when they have been proven to be lying.
Think about that next time you read a microsoft statement or denial.
<icon of pants on fire>
There appears to be no cure, so maybe Microsfot should be shot (like our best cattle were).
We've just started using Microsoft's Threat Management Gateway web filter - which blocks the Meter Maids website, classifying it as Pornography.
What were the girls wearing in the photographs?
I can visualise the situation at M$:
"Its been 10 days you've been looking at them photos, Bruce! It's my turn!"
Can someone please explain the connection between parking enforcement and skimpy gold swimwear?
...most men will dribble and go yes miss and happily accept the fine. Oh the other half out with hubby will take ticket and tell him to hurry up get in car, thus preventing him slobbering on his shoes. As for the ladys.
Meter Maid: Here's your fine, btw, luurve you shoes..
Woman: Bitc...really? Do you like them? Ok. Ticket you say...Thanks.
In the UK you get some jumped up little hitler (ooo is that allowed these days?) that you just want to punch in the face. So you spend 50 minutes shouting and trying to make them see sense about your bumber being 1nm over the line.
See whats works best.
for many years now, the shire council of the gold coast has
promoted its tourism friendliness by employing bikini-clad
woman to pop coins in expired parking meters, so that
tourists having a good time don't have to worry about
parking fines. not knowing whether you have to have an
interstate plate to qualify one cannot say whether this is
of direct fiduciary benefit to the locals, but the on-going
stunt has generated a ship-load of publicity over the years.
paris because ronaldo the dermo-technician's post
about her post-chiropractic visit to the beauty parlor
for a facial and brow-waxing missed yesterdays cut...
I guess that makes some kind of sense. I wasn't expecting it to be even that logical.
"Redmond claimed it had no idea what attire the meter maids would be dressed in until TechEd kicked of"
"Redmond claimed it had no idea how crap Vista was until the day of the launch"
"She told the SMH that Microsoft in fact chose what outfits the women should wear "
"Microsoft makes everything you do easy" --- I suppose after that, any, ummm not-quite-truth is easy.
For the record, the IT Girls I know would have enjoyed the event, although some Gold Coast boys (Manpower? Thunder from Down Under?) should probably have been likewise involved in the name of fairness. The Gold Coast is called 'BrisVEGAS' for a reason!)
Seeing as MS chose the outfits (Classic!) but in other news articles around the world are claiming ignorance (ie News.com.au) sounds like a few people at Gatesworld are panicking in the PR backpedalling...
These girls are just one of the reasons i holiday in Surfers as often as i can.
Such a nice slice of the world, it gets 300 days of sunshine a year :)
And these girls are awesome. Switched on, happy, and damn nice.
M$ is just retarded to try to blame them.
Am I the only male who not only agrees that women are indeed objectified when sent in swimwear to these events, but that the companies who hire them seriously stereotype their (male) customers, too?
Personally, I find it a complete turn-off and tend to avoid going to the stands where these occur.
For the record: Married twice, 4 kids. It's not as if I don't appreciate the fairer sex. :-)
Yes you are. Indeedy. ... What was that again? Reptile brain just sent a Non-Maskable Interrupt, memory is gone.
I entirely agree with him.
Of course it objectifies women. By definition, the women employed by this team are being selected PURELY on the basis of their looks - they have to stand around and look good in bikinis. That's objectification, pure and simple.
And yes - I frankly find it embarrassing to see women like this at trade shows - or anywhere else except at the beach or hotel swimming pool, in all honesty.
I thought this sort of thing went out in the seventies.
"Microsoft told the newspaper that it was "unaware of their exact costuming until the day of the event, at which time it was too late to be addressed"."
So, an *Australian* arm of MS holds a conference in the *Gold Coast* with an appearance by the *Meter Maids* and they claim they didn't know what they were getting?(1)
Bullshit. The Gold Coast Meter Maids are (in)famous ever since their introduction.
Historical Note: For those of you who don't live in Oz, the Meter Maids were originally a scheme thought up by the Gold Coast retailers. They would walk around in their gold bikinis and "top up" any parking meter that were about to expire. Hence their name. They have since been discontinued, but their legacy lives on via the current "Meter Maid" eye-candy outfit.
(1) yeah, yeah, I know they've since admitted their stupidity. My flabber is just gasted that they even *tried* the old "who? us?" routine in the first place.
