A Gallery of IT Company T-Shirts
About 10 years ago, when I first switched to studying software, I was absolutely in awe of companies like Microsoft and Intel — a passionate youth ready to dedicate my life to IT. I was also really into IT “merchandise.” In my sophomore year, I traded a meal for a crappy jacket with a Microsoft logo and wore it every day to show off — it felt awesome. Later, when I started working in corporate partnership, interacting with these companies became routine, and I collected even more swag.
Today it got hot, so I was looking in my closet for a Ralph Lauren polo. Instead, I found all these old shirts. Some have yellowed and haven’t been worn in years. I’m turning 30 at the end of this year — past the age of idolizing this stuff, and too old to wear them anyway. Looking back, the quality was never great. So here’s an exhibition. Photo for memories, then donated. The Shanghai Red Cross gets a treat.
- Microsoft MVP shirt, China-exclusive edition
- Windows Embedded T-shirt — had its glory days
- T-shirt with the global MVP logo
- The most precious one — has the autograph of Microsoft’s former CIO in the lower right corner, though it’s faded now
- Intel Education logo — I have several of these. Poor quality, pilled after one wash.
- Intel T-shirt — why a penguin? Wasn’t it the Wintel alliance?
- Intel’s arch-nemesis appears. But in this color — how are you supposed to wear it? People would laugh you to death.
- Apple T-shirt, distributed at WWDC 2008. Probably getting another one this year.
- Android robot T-shirt — quite distinctive, but if you don’t know the logo, you might think it looks a bit stupid.
- Symbian shirt — now permanent history. Next time Symbian holds a conference, they’ll be handing out Accenture shirts.
- Indian company Infosys’s shirt, with “Code Master” on the front. Whoever wears it looks just as foolish as the Indians.
I have a few more from other companies, not posting them.
Notice there’s not a single domestic company’s T-shirt. Why? Because local companies understand China better — they don’t give out useless T-shirts. They give more valuable things. Baidu gave a decent fountain pen. Alibaba gave a wool blanket…