Friday, March 01, 2013

ANU Microsoft Tech Lounge

Greetings from the Microsoft Tech Lounge at the Australian National University in Canberra. The lounge looks a lot less crowded that the publicity picture and has the atmosphere of a library. This appears to be a temporary "pop up" facility. Some rugs have been put down and and a trestle bench, plus wallpaper on existing walls. But there does not appear to have been any new walls built.  The "Lounge" sits in the foyer of an existing commerce building.

There is a eclectic mix of lounge chairs and tables which look like packing cases (much like a student share house). A closer examination shows some clever design features. What appears to be simply a throw rug actually disguises a raised floor which allows all the cables to be hidden underneath.

There are large screen Dell desktop computers, as well as Dell laptops. The laptops are attached to security cables, power and wired Ethernet, with cables long enough to use comfortably from a lounge chair. There are two Xbox games built into one wall. Curiously I could see only two Microsoft "surface" tablet computers, which no one was using (whereas the Dell devices were being used).. The lounge appears to be a success, and I was relieved to see there was not too much marketing of Microsoft products (just one LCD wall panel marketing Windows 8).

No comments: