Microsoft Santa Comes Calling; Free Surface Tablets, Work PCs, Windows Phone 8 Devices For Employees

In a recent company meeting held at KeyArena in Seattle, Steve Ballmer announced that Microsoft was accelerating the refresh cycle for employees' work computers in a move to migrate staff to Windows 8 machines made by hardware partners.

The Microsoft refresh cycle usually takes three years, but at present the company is planning to move employees to a new operating system en masse.

Apparently, all employees get new Windows Phone 8 devices for use at work and home. The practice is not something new though as it was employed during Windows Phone 7 release as well, Geekwire stated.

All Full-Time Employees (FTE) are likely to receive free Surface RT machine for use at work and home.

At present, reports state that there are over 94,000 people working worldwide for the software giant. The Microsoft scrip (MSFT) closed flat Sept. 13 at $30.93.

In the after-trading hours, the scrip remained unchanged and in the pre-market trading it rose to $31.12 gaining 0.6 percent or 180 cents.