Microsoft asks employees to dump their iPods

This is rich. According to Macworld (U.K.) blogger Jonny Evans, Microsoft's Zune group headquarters now sports an "amnesty bin" into which employees are supposed to dump their iPods.

I cannot confirm the authenticity of this flickr photo that appears to show one of the bins containing a smattering of iPods. The bin has a sign that reads "iPod amnesty bin … bite me," as well as a photo of green apple with two bites taken out.

Writes Evans:

Well - sure, there's a few iPods in the bin, but there's no saying who put them in there. … The fact of the matter here is that by attempting to coerce employees into abandoning the world's favourite music player, Microsoft is actually showing how very popular the iPod has become - and the fact employees aren't playing ball reinforces the notion that Microsoft has lost this battle for good.

No one wants a Zune. Not really.

If all this is on the up and up, perhaps Microsoft would have been better served to have cited security concerns as the reason to rid their workplaces of the offending music players. That's been a growing trend recently as security experts have sounded an alarm about the risks of all small storage devices in terms of securing personally identifiable and other important corporate data.

No one would have believed them, but it wouldn't have looked quite this ridiculous.