Microsoft is now selling its Windows XP-themed Crocs. After initially revealing them as a sweepstakes item on Instagram earlier this month, anyone can now purchase the limited edition Crocs for $79.95 at Microsoft’s online company store.
The Crocs feature the iconic blue sky and clouds from the Windows XP wallpaper, with a green sole to mimic the grass. They also include a six-pack of Microsoft Jibbitz, with nostalgic options like the original MSN logo, the Internet Explorer icon, Clippy, and a mouse pointer. Microsoft is also bundling a Windows XP-themed drawstring backpack in the $79.95 purchase.
We first got a glimpse at the Windows XP Crocs in August, when Microsoft started selling them to employees ahead of today’s public launch. Microsoft told us in August that its Windows XP Crocs aren’t an official partnership with Crocs, and that they’re being released as “a fun, limited-run celebration” of Microsoft’s 50th anniversary.
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Microsoft has fired one of the employees who disrupted the company’s 50th-anniversary event. In an email seen by The Verge, Microsoft told Ibtihal Aboussad that their employment has been terminated due to “acts of misconduct.”
Aboussad was one of two protesters that interrupted Microsoft’s 50th anniversary event on Friday by calling Microsoft’s AI CEO, Mustafa Suleyman, a “war profiteer” and demanding that Microsoft “stop using AI for genocide in our region.” A second protester, Vaniya Agrawal, interrupted Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, former CEO Steve Ballmer, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella later on in the event. Both Microsoft employees also sent separate emails to thousands of coworkers, calling on Microsoft to cut its contracts with the Israeli government.
“Earlier today, you interrupted a speech by Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman during the Company’s 50th anniversary event in Redmond, Seattle, by yelling and finger-pointing at the CEO before a live audience of thousands of attendees, and making hostile, unprovoked, and highly inappropriate accusations against the CEO, the Company and Microsoft generally,” the email to Ibtihal Aboussad says. “While the CEO remained calm and attempted to de-escalate the matter, your conduct was so aggressive that you had to be escorted out of the room by security.”
Aboussad was fired today by Microsoft Canada, while Agrawal was dismissed shortly after putting in her two weeks’ notice before the Friday protest, according to an email seen by The Verge. Both protestors are associated with No Azure for Apartheid, a group of Microsoft employees rallying against the company’s contracts with Israel.
“The company has concluded that your misconduct was designed to gain notoriety and cause maximum disruption to this highly anticipated event,” the email to Aboussad reads. “It is also concerning that you have not apologized to the company, and in fact you have shown no remorse for the effect that your actions have had and will have.”
We’ve reached out to Microsoft to comment on the dismissals, but the company didn’t respond in time for publication.
Correction, April 7th: A previous version of the article stated Agrawal was dismissed immediately after submitting her resignation. Agrawal submitted her resignation before the protests and was then dismissed early.
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A Microsoft employee disrupted the company’s 50th anniversary event to protest its use of AI.
“Shame on you,” said Microsoft employee Ibtihal Aboussad, speaking directly to Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman. “You are a war profiteer. Stop using AI for genocide. Stop using AI for genocide in our region. You have blood on your hands. All of Microsoft has blood on its hands. How dare you all celebrate when Microsoft is killing children. Shame on you all.”
Sources at Microsoft tell The Verge that shortly after Aboussad was ushered out of Microsoft’s event, she sent an email to a number of email distribution lists that contain hundreds or thousands of Microsoft employees. Here is Aboussad’s email in full:
]]>Hi all,
As you might have just seen on the livestream or witnessed in person, I disrupted the speech of Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman during the highly-anticipated 50th anniversary celebration. Here’s why.
My name is Ibtihal, and for the past 3.5 years, I’ve been a software engineer on Microsoft’s AI Platform org. I spoke up today because after learning that my org was powering the genocide of my people in Palestine, I saw no other moral choice. This is especially true when I’ve witnessed how Microsoft has tried to quell and suppress any dissent from my coworkers who tried to raise this issue. For the past year and a half, our Arab, Palestinian, and Muslim community at Microsoft has been silenced, intimidated, harassed, and doxxed, with impunity from Microsoft. Attempts at speaking up at best fell on deaf ears, and at worst, led to the firing of two employees for simply holding a vigil. There was simply no other way to make our voices heard.
We are witnessing a genocide
For the past 1.5 years, I’ve witnessed the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people by Israel. I’ve seen unspeakable suffering amidst Israel’s mass human rights violations – indiscriminate carpet bombings, the targeting of hospitals and schools, and the continuation of an apartheid state – all of which have been condemned globally by the UN, ICC, and ICJ, and numerous human rights organizations. The images of innocent children covered in ash and blood, the wails of mourning parents, and the destruction of entire families and communities have forever fractured me.
At the time of writing, Israel has resumed its full-scale genocide in Gaza, which has so far killed by some estimates over 300,000 Gazans in the past 1.5 year alone. Just days ago, it was revealed that Israel killed fifteen paramedics and rescue workers in Gaza, executing them “one by one,” before burying them in the sand — yet another horrific war crime. All the while, our “responsible” AI work powers this surveillance and murder. The United Nations and the International Court of Justice have concluded that this is a genocide, with the International Criminal Court issuing arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.
We are Complicit
When I moved to AI Platform, I was excited to contribute to cutting-edge AI technology and its applications for the good of humanity: accessibility products, translation services, and tools to “empower every human and organization to achieve more.” I was not informed that Microsoft would sell my work to the Israeli military and government, with the purpose of spying on and murdering journalists, doctors, aid workers, and entire civilian families. If I knew my work on transcription scenarios would help spy on and transcribe phone calls to better target Palestinians (source), I would not have joined this organization and contributed to genocide. I did not sign up to write code that violates human rights.
According to AP news, there is “a $133 million contract between Microsoft and Israel’s Ministry of Defense.”
“The Israeli military’s usage of Microsoft and OpenAI artificial intelligence spiked last March to nearly 200 times higher than before the week leading up to the Oct. 7 attack. The amount of data it stored on Microsoft servers doubled between that time and July 2024 to more than 13.6 petabytes.”
“The Israeli military uses Microsoft Azure to compile information gathered through mass surveillance, which it transcribes and translates, including phone calls, texts and audio messages, according to an Israeli intelligence officer who works with the systems. That data can then be cross-checked with Israel’s in-house targeting systems.”
Microsoft AI also powers the most “sensitive and highly classified projects” for the Israeli military, including its “target bank” and the Palestinian population registry. Microsoft cloud and AI enabled the Israeli military to be more lethal and destructive in Gaza than they otherwise could.
Microsoft has also been providing software, cloud services, and consulting services to the Israeli military and government, totaling millions in profit. War Criminal Benjamin Netanyahu has explicitly mentioned his strong ties to Microsoft. A list of these contracts with the Israeli military and government can be found here: An Introduction to Microsoft’s Complicity in Apartheid and Genocide
In fact, Microsoft is so deeply connected to the Israeli military that it was just yesterday designated one of the priority boycott targets of the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanctions) campaign.
Regardless of your political stances, is this the legacy we want to leave behind? Is working on deadly AI weapons something you can tell your children about? Do we want to be on the wrong side of history?
Even though your work could be unrelated to the cloud that the military uses, your work benefits the company and allows it to take on the contract. Regardless of your team, you serve a company that is arming the Israeli occupation. It is undeniable that part of your compensation, no matter how small, is being paid by genocide.
Whether you work on AI or not, you will be complicit if you do nothing. It is now OUR job to take a vocal stand against Microsoft AI’s involvement in crimes against humanity.
This is why I decided to speak up today, and why I signed this important petition to demand Microsoft cut ties with genocide. And I urge you all to do the same.
Call to Action
Silence is complicity. But action always has a reaction, no matter how big or small. As workers for this company, we must make our voices heard, and demand that Microsoft does the right thing: stop selling technology to the Israeli military.
If you are also concerned about this news, and you also want your work to be used ethically, I urge you to take action:
Sign the No Azure for Apartheid petition: We will not write code that kills. And join the campaign to add your voice to the growing number of concerned Microsoft employees.
Join me in showing our discontent in this thread. If you also feel tricked into deploying weapons which target children and civilians, urge leadership (CC’ed) to drop these contracts.
Don’t stop speaking up. Urge SLT to drop these contracts at every opportunity.
Start conversations with your co-workers about the points above – so many employees may not know!
Microsoft’s human rights statement prohibits retaliation against anyone who raises a human rights-related concern: Human rights statement | Microsoft CSR
Our company has precedents in supporting human rights, including divestment from apartheid South Africa and dropping contracts with AnyVision (Israeli facial recognition startup), after Microsoft employee and community protests. My hope is that our collective voices will motivate our AI leaders to do the same, and correct Microsoft’s actions regarding these human rights violations, to avoid a stained legacy. Microsoft Cloud and AI should stop being the bombs and bullets of the 21st century.
Sincerely,
A concerned Microsoft employee
In 2005, Microsoft's leaders were starting to get worried. Windows and Office were doing well, but the company's lead software architect, Ray Ozzie, warned them that an emerging trend threatened Microsoft's very existence.
"A new business model has emerged in the form of advertising-supported services and software," warned Ozzie in his famous memo. "This model has the potential to fundamentally impact how we and other developers build, deliver, and monetize innovations."
Ozzie wanted Microsoft to get ready for the web-based world and cloud computing, fearing the company would otherwise be left behind. In the years after Ozzie's memo, Googl …
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Fifty years ago today, Micro-Soft was founded by friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen. As the name implies, Microsoft was originally focused on microprocessors and software, and Gates and Allen created the company to develop software for the Altair 8800, an early personal computer.
Founded on April 4th, 1975, Microsoft went on to strike a deal with IBM to provide software for its first PC in 1980. This became the foundation of MS-DOS, which dominated IBM-compatible PCs during the ’80s. Microsoft’s early success in developing software for PCs eventually led to the first version of Windows in 1985 and a dream of a PC on every desk and in every home.
That early Windows GUI on top of MS-DOS quickly progressed into an even more capable operating system with the launch of Windows 95. The highly-anticipated version of Windows launched at midnight, with fans lining up at stores to get boxed copies of Windows 95 to install on their PCs. Windows 95 introduced many parts of Windows that we still use today, including the familiar desktop, File Explorer, My Documents area, and Recycle Bin.
While Microsoft was improving Windows with every release, it was also developing a variety of productivity apps throughout the 1980s that would soon become the company’s Office suite. Launched originally in 1989 for the Mac, Office quickly became an important productivity suite on Windows that even runs inside a web browser these days. Office and Windows are now used by billions of people every day, making Microsoft one of the most valuable tech companies in the world.
Microsoft’s success with Windows and Office has allowed the company to expand in many directions over the past 50 years, including the launch of the Xbox game console in 2001, the Azure cloud push in 2008, and even the Bing search engine launch in 2009.
Microsoft has also experimented with a variety of hardware over the years, but its most successful device lineup has come in the form of Surface, which originally launched in 2012 alongside Windows 8. Surface has served as a vehicle to demonstrate the best of Windows and Office, and it’s quickly becoming a test bed for Microsoft’s AI ambitions on the PC.
Microsoft’s next 50 years look increasingly focused on an AI transformation it’s in the middle of building toward. It has the potential to overhaul Windows, Office, Azure, and practically every business that Microsoft has built over the decades.
Microsoft is celebrating its 50-year anniversary today during a special event at the company’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington. The software maker will unveil new Copilot features, and we’re expecting to see familiar faces from the past and present of Microsoft to reflect on the company’s 50 years and the future of this tech giant.
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This week, on April 4th, Microsoft turns 50 years old. The company has gone through sweeping changes over that time - from two guys in New Mexico to more than a quarter-million employees worldwide, from making text-based operating systems to holographic video games - but through the decades, it's remained a foundation of the tech world.
Microsoft has made a lot of products over its 50 years, ranging from file formats and PC accessories to cloud servers and design languages. A great many were duds - it's hard to nail everything over five decades - but a lot were memorable, fascinating, or simply excellent products that would go on to be used …
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Microsoft has started sending out invites to a 50th anniversary and Copilot event at the company’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington. The April 4th event will take place on the day Microsoft marks 50 years since it was first founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975.
The event on Microsoft’s campus will include an employee-only celebration of the company’s 50 years, alongside details on what’s next for the consumer side of Microsoft’s Copilot AI companion. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman, and other “leaders of past and present” will be part of the Copilot and 50th anniversary event.
The Copilot event will take place amid rumors that Microsoft is developing its own in-house AI reasoning models to compete with OpenAI. The Information reported last week that Suleyman has been leading the charge on developing Microsoft’s own AI models, dubbed MAI. These models could potentially compete with OpenAI and even replace OpenAI’s models in Copilot.
It’s possible that Microsoft might be ready to demo some of its own AI model work at this Copilot event next month, where the company will undoubtedly be looking to position AI at the center of its plan for its next 50 years.
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