Microsoft is infinite: it has no walls, and therefore, no windows.

The Microsoft that can be known is not the eternal Microsoft. The wizards that can whiz are not the eternal wizards.

On the contrary: Microsoft is almost all windows, but they all look inward.

Also, they put a lot of people in cubicals now. The short kind, where it's impossible to get privacy, or quiet.

Not the software development teams in Redmond, at least as of 2007, though some of the support and administrative services certainly were. The goal was to give all dev team members their own private office. Interns and the more junior people (in terms of number of years at MSFT) are "doubled up" if there are insufficient spaces, but it is generally considered a bad thing and something management tries to minimize.

As of 2010 this is true AFAIK -- and it would be difficult to change seeing as many of the buildings are designed to maximize office space and lack the open spaces needed for cubicle farms.

It may be different outside of dev however.

It depends on what team you're on. Most (all?) of the older buildings in Redmond are private offices (and sometimes people are doubled up depending on space). I've seen cubicles in some of the newer buildings where Xbox/Zune people work.

I work in Xbox, regular employee developers still have private offices, contractors (which I am) don't.

It's lame to complain about being downvoted, but I'm genuinely curious why this was downvoted - it seems like it's nothing that I'd expect to be divisive, it's just blandly factual.

... because it's not true :)

Huh, it's true of all the people / places I've met / paid attention to, but I haven't scoured the whole department so you're probably right.

Not true any more. :-/

Yes it is. There might be some devs in cubicles somewhere, but I don't know any of them. Everyone I know at Microsoft has an office (including myself).

I have seen a building with some cubicles, but I don't know who uses those.

Cubes (a.k.a. "Collaberative Work Environments" a.k.a. "Workplace Advantage") are becoming more common.

In one case that I know far too much about they can get 150 people onto a floor that previously held 100 (at which point they are at the code limit for the width of the stairwells, which is in part determined by the number of people expected to use it for emergency egress)

I've been in non-office work environments 3 times in 10 years at MS, thankfully back in my own office now...

I haven't hard anyone talking about that, but with 92K employees, I obviously don't talk to everyone. I wonder what percentage of FTEs are actually in a cube or office sharing situation, though.

Cubes are the norm in the Xbox division, and I hear that office sharing is common in Bing.

Hmm. I ride the connector with an SDET in Xbox. I'll have to ask him if he's in a cube.

I've heard that the original set of MSFT buildings in Redmond (were they there in 1984? I don't know) were designed with maximizing the number of window offices in mind. They are shaped like an "X".

People on most teams still get their own private office, at least in Redmond and Mountain View.

What other place in the valley has private offices?

I'd love that.

I've seen cube sharing and even PC sharing.

I interviewed with one company where the developers sat in some leftover space between a cubical wall and a real wall.

Another company I worked at a 3 to 4 person "suite" measured in at 10ft x 12ft.