Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is renowned for his developer evangelism, and is well known in the tech community for his rousing, if presumably fruity-smelling, cheerleading on stage. Clearly, the active lifestyle maintained at conferences is something that Microsoft wants to instill in all developers, leading to their latest online offering: 'Active-Build Live Developer Workouts Beta'.
According to Microsoft, "when we looked away from the Windows Vista team, we realised that most developers spend a serious amount of time in front of their computers, y'know, coding. To aid our developers further, we've launched Active-Build Live Developer Workouts Beta with a whole series of fitness videos from Steve Ballmer himself".
The service, included with every MSDN subscription, takes the form of a YouTube-esque player, a desktop client that prompts developers to take a break, as well as links to the Zune Marketplace to download videos for on-the-go use.
Sources at Microsoft say that distribution talks are 'ongoing' with a number of other providers to further the reach of the series, and that in a moment of post-workout delusion Ballmer attempted to negotiate with Apple for an iTunes release. Senior executives at Apple, speaking on condition of anonymity, are reportedly clueless on how to proceeed: "The iTunes intern who brought up the idea, along with [Apple CEO] Steve Jobs, are both currently under sedation after an internal meeting. It would appear that the videos fell somewhat below [Jobs'] 'impeccable taste threshold' and until Steve is fit to return to work and fire the intern, we're not sure how to proceed on any projects, internal or otherwise."
As usual, Apple PR declined to comment on 'market speculation', however recent rumours indicate that John Hodgman will appear once again at the start of Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference keynote in an OK-GO-inspired Mac/PC 'Treadmill' Advert.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-01-2008 @ 2:40PM
Michael said...
Seriously, people.
This is not that bad an idea.
Have you seen Ballmer?
Have you seen these programmers?
Jeez.
I'm in the same ballpark myself.
Companies should force their workers to have some sort of exercise, for insurance purposes, if nothing else.
We're about the only country left that doesn't.
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