In what could be described as both a marketing stunt and simply a nice thing to do, Microsoft this weekend gave away its products to SXSW attendees that had both suffered broken smartphones and had their devices stolen.
Microsoft was closely watching the #sxswproblems hashtag in Austin and encouraged those with cracked phone screens or other annoying issues to tweet out their problems.
Many people did:
https://twitter.com/benhunted/status/442388346665320448
https://twitter.com/didiimnida/status/442461465333596160
https://twitter.com/reustle/status/442409137104621569
But Microsoft took this idea to another level when a group of SXSWers had their laptops stolen from a rental home. The victims were part of the annual StartupBus hackathon and had traveled from Florida to Austin on a bus while they created businesses.
Less than 48 hours before the group was set to pitch their ideas in front high-profile judges, the house was robbed.
https://twitter.com/prtkgpt/status/442700468427300864
Microsoft then came to the rescue, supplying the entrepreneurs with new Windows 8.1 tablets:
https://twitter.com/Windows/status/442742102070681600
Bravo, Microsoft.