Inside Microsoft’s Office at Redmond

Oct 15, 2009 12 comments

Here is a photo tour of Microsoft’s new research building called Building 99 in Redmond, Washington, USA.

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A huge atrium with a coffee shop, a huge projector and sound system, so they can hold speeches there, or show movies or do other presentations.

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Inside the building there are tons of collaboration spaces where they could meet, along with surfaces they could write things on. Here’s some equations that were on one such collaboration area, done by the cryptography group.

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A “Minority Report” like holographic screens. Cool toys these guys have.

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Each conference room has a little computer in front of it. Want to know if the room is open to use? Just check. Or sign up. It hooks into Microsoft’s Exchange server so other people who are at their desks can see the room is taken.

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Microsoft Research is doing a lot of research where they need a completely quiet room, so they built one. Called an anechoic chamber this thing is so quiet you could hear your heart beating.

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The floor is actually elevated so all networking, and air control can be put underneath. The carpet isn’t actually one solid piece, but rather is tiled so that each piece can be lifted off and things underneath can be reconfigured. If a researcher is bothered by the location of the air vent in their office he or she could have it moved to some other location. Even the interior walls were moveable. So, if a group wanted to change its space they could do so without costing Microsoft a lot of money in rebuilding costs.

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The parking garage tells you what floors have spaces available so you don’t waste time looking.

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Instead of wasting lots of room building bigger offices so that researchers could have space for book collections, they built book cases into the hallways.

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Wide open spaces with coffee tables.

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Many of the conference rooms are open to viewing from the atrium.

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[via Scobleizer]

Comments

  1. Now I want to work for Microsoft. Too bad I know very little about software :(.

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  2. Don't worry Brian, neither do they ;)

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  3. Cryptography? which Microsoft program offers encryption? Which data is encrypted? Why is it encrypted? Why does Microsoft want us to think it is inventing encryption routines?


    Hmmmm.......

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  4. Microsoft outlook

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  5. Psh. My school's conference rooms have those computers that tell you when they're taken

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  6. What I remember from visiting the Redmond offices was the fully-stocked pantry's on every floor (drinks and munchies), and how each developer had full control of his own space and schedule, including moving in a bed for napping in the office. Quite an environment.

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  7. LMAO @ Jonathon!!

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  8. Googleplex looks more fun than Microsoft's. This looks like a serious place to work on. Definitely not my type of environment to think creatively.

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  9. Where I work we have the conference room displays and tiled carpet. It's a small company that I work for with barely any IT budget.

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  10. The Computer in front of the Conference Room looks like Windows 95...

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  11. I've been in this building. Not as impressive as it appears here.

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