Microsoft has told all its employees in China that they will soon only be allowed to use iPhones for work purposes. The ban on Android devices is part of a security-related Microsoft initiative for providing a unified way of managing and verifying employee identities.

The mandate, set to come into effect in September 2024, was announced in an internal memo seen by Bloomberg News. It will require Microsoft’s China-based workers to verify their identities when logging in to work computers or phones. The change is part of Microsoft’s global Secure Future Initiative that is intended, among other things, to ensure that all staff use the Microsoft Authenticator password manager and Identity Pass app.

While Apple’s iOS store is available in China, Google Play isn’t. Local smartphone giants such as Huawei and Xiaomi operate their own platforms in the country, but Microsoft has chosen to block access from those companies’ devices to its corporate resources because they lack Google’s mobile services, reads the memo.

Any staff in the country using Android handsets, including those from Huawei or Xiaomi, will be provided with an iPhone 15, as a one-time purchase. The Redmond giant is designating collection points across China where employees can pick up their iPhones.

Microsoft is also introducing the iPhones-only rule in Hong Kong, despite the Google Play Store being available in the special administrative region of China.

  • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Have you seen Windows 11? I have no faith Microsoft could produce a decent phone OS that would serve users well.

    • TopHatExtraordinaire@programming.dev
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      4 months ago

      The Microsoft phone was decent, but, yea, their app store was lacking. Shoutout to the Zune, which was pretty good software & hardware from what I can remember.

      • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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        4 months ago

        I will forever maintain that on a purely hardware level that the Zune was better than the iPod. iTunes and later the App Store for iPod Touch is what made iPod won. Zune had no apps.

      • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Dude I went to high school with loved the zune so much he got it’s logo or something tattooed on him. Of course he also liked to tase his own balls, so his tastes were questionable.

    • subignition@fedia.io
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      4 months ago

      Phone or not, I don’t think Microsoft has the ability to listen to their users anymore at all