An insight into our local finance department

Time is flying by and I can hardly believe that for us 2016 interns the last month at Microsoft Austria has already started. I think it is also high time to give you some insights into finance department in our subsidiary. Wondering who I am? A second year master student at Cracow University of Economics, a fan of technology, finance, accounting and sports. Also a ski instructor, with exchange semesters both at Management Center Innsbruck and Vienna University of Economics and Business. A Pole speaking English, German and struggling with Austrian. So in this blog post, you will get a fresh overview through the eyes of foreigner in Austria.

Finance meeting with P&G

“The only constant is change …” This saying has never sounded as true to me as during my internship at Microsoft. From day one in finance team I felt like an eligible member of this fine group of inspiring and very friendly people. The first days involved what seemed liked endless series of jargon-ridden meetings, which gave me an opportunity to learn really fast (especially how to use Micrsoft’s acronym dictionary). The most important takeaway? Never be afraid to ask questions. What I really liked about working in finance is that I had a chance to meet, talk and work along with Microsofties from every department and at all levels. It also gave me a full picture of how Microsoft is working in terms of organization.

Working during my bus trip to Poland, where I was taking my last exams

My main responsibilities involved tasks around our internal audit and compliance as well as supporting finance controllers. As the subsidiary’s finance team in is not very big, I had a possibility to get a good overview of tasks and work structure in finance within such a big and international organization. The local finance team is very international and this is represented in our daily work, when we connect and share best practice with our colleagues from all over the world.

While discovering compliance I learned how Microsoft conducts its business

And of course apart from discovering Microsoft, I was enjoying life in beautiful Vienna and also exploring Austria. Still being student in Cracow and doing my internship in Austria made me fully understand and enjoy a concept of working in home office and on the go, also known as new world of work.

Enjoying life in beautiful Austria

Yours, Anna

A Great Day to Start a Career in the Microsoft Community

Fortunately, all of our preparation efforts for this unique Microsoft community event payed off. 15 of our Microsoft Partners came here to the local Microsoft headquarter to represent their company in front of 80 technical and business students, who are looking for a job in the IT industry. Lukas Keller, our SMS&P lead, kicked off the event with an interesting keynote about digitalization and progress in the IT industry. After the keynote, partners held presentations about their companies and their open positions in order to give students an insight as to what it is like to work with them. In between, Johanna Wagner, our HR recruiting manager, coached the students regarding the application process and delivered some Microsoft business insights.

Exhausted students had the opportunity to challenge their colleagues in FIFA 16 on our Xbox. We provided them with a comfortable area to relax enjoy the full potential of Xbox gaming. The day ended with an office tour to give the students an impression of how the Microsoft community works and collaborates.

We enjoyed hosting this first Microsoft Career Day and hope the event helped students to start great careers in the Microsoft ecosystem.

Refugee Hackathon (May 21 & 22)

Microsoft Austria was the host of a hackathon aiming at finding an IT solution to support refugees which are stranded in Austria. I took the chance to participate and want to provide you a brief insight.

People who fled from home due to war are arriving in a country with a different cultural behavior and lifestyle, which can lead to a lot of issues, questions and information gaps. About 50 developers voluntarily contributed their skills to find THE idea to help. The given time range for development was two days for creating an idea, work on it or develop a plan for further development. It could be a website, a mobile or web application and as well as a well-structured idea for further implementation.

Austrian Enterprises Meet Ann Johnson (And One Of Us Interns)

On May 19 a cloud security roundtable took place in our office. I had the honor to listen to the discussion between Ann Johnson, our Vice President of Global Enterprise Security, and some of our enterprise customers. What do Austrian enterprises think about the cloud? What are they afraid of? She wanted to know.

We are establishing data centers all over the world. In Germany, we will operate one in cooperation with T-Systems and offer Azure, Office 365, Dynamics CRM Online for European clients. Further data centers are planned in Brazil and Asia. “Do you think these investments are the right approach to strengthen your trust in cloud services?”, asked Ann Johnson the discussers and got positive feedback, but also critical questions.

How do you make sure that Microsoft employees do not read our data?
The data is encrypted. You have the key to access the decrypted data. We do not need any access to your data. Nor for storage and transaction of your data, neither for improvements of your infrastructure.

Why should I transfer my data to the cloud?
The cloud enables you to focus on your core business instead of maintaining your own datacenter, employing experts which are in general hard to find and developing and enforcing appropriate policies yourself. These tasks are the core of our business. That is why we continuously invest in the infrastructure to guarantee the highest security standards for the cloud and to protect your data – a security level which you cannot achieve with your own resources, although I know that storing your data locally psychologically gives you a feeling of more control.

Are big companies not prioritized over small ones in case of problems?
No, they are not. Our support sets priorities according to the business impact for the individual enterprise independently of its size.

What happens with my data, if I cancel my contract with Microsoft?
After a predetermined period of time in which your data will be transferred to your new datacenter, we will destroy all your data. The exact procedure will be specified in the contract. Rebuilding your data will be as difficult as putting together shred papers whose snippets are disposed in countless bins.

A great way to start the week …

Once a month, the leadership team of SMS&P (Small and Midmarket Solutions and Partners Group) invites the entire SMS&P team to start the week with a healthy breakfast. This month RITA – you might have heard of them already – provided a very tasty and healthy breakfast for our team. We started at 8.15 am – which was pretty early for some of the colleagues, but with some pastries and coffee they quickly get revived 🙂

This kind of get-together is totally non-business and team members talk about everything, most of the time, though, about the great weekend they had and about the amazing weather – while I was sitting in the library and writing my master thesis, but everything has an end!

Give everyone a High-Five!

That was the motto for this years’ Pioneers-Festival – and some of us Microsoft-Interns were right in the middle of everything! Along with the organizers from the Developer Experience department, we were able to fill a lot of founders, investors and other festival-participants with enthusiasm for our Surface Book and other Windows 10 devices! Furthermore, we were able to win some exciting start-ups as participants for our BizSpark program.

Of course we also had a lot of fun! With the start-up HoloLight, we got to try a HoloLens for the first time ever! Spoiler Alert: It’s seriously awesome! We also took a cover picture for the Red Bulletin – not as fancy as the one, Dorothee Ritz took with DX lead Nicolas Sorger yesterday, but we’ll get there 😉 Most importantly, all of us got to see many great speeches and presentations by inspiring people.

Thanks a lot to the organizing committee for this great event. We had a great time – and we’re sure everyone else did, too!

RITA bringt’s.

Literally translated, “RITA’s delivering it”. Tasty, healthy, vegan food, that’s what this post is about.

Once a month Microsoft Austria is hosting what we call the “Healthy Wednesday” and has the local kitchen and bike food delivery service RITA bringing a full menu of great food to our office. Despite more than three available food outlets at Europlaza, this event regularly results in a crowded cafeteria area and – at this time of the year – patio with nice conversations between fellows taking place.

So what are some of these healthy treats we have had by now? A refreshing radish soup with sunflower seeds, sweet potato chili with avocado or some crunchy muesli with banana and mango – you see, there is something delicious for everyone.

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einmal im Monat kommt zu uns "Rita bringt's" also die gesunde Mittagessen-Alternative… #microsoftaustria #yummy #rita #schokokuchen

A post shared by Microsoft Österreich (@microsoft_at) on May 18, 2016 at 6:33am PDT

DigiGirlz conquered our office at the Wiener Töchtertag

At the Wiener Töchtertag last Thursday Microsoft invited girls from all over Vienna and Lower Austria to spend their day at the office.
To welcome the young arrivals Julia, Selma, Kristina and me, Patrizia, provided the girls with DigiGirlz Shirts and name patches to simplify the process of getting to know each other.
At 9 am we introduced each other to the “daughters” and presented the day’s agenda.
After a short photo session with Dorothee, Nora and Rina presented their job description and day-to-day tasks to the audience.
Shortly after the girls got the opportunity to get to know the office and to become awake by sliding down our famous slide from the second to the first floor.
After splitting up our eager students into two groups, we spent the upcoming 1 1/2 h talking about the safe use of the Internet and exchanged experiences and challenges with each other.
At 12 am the DigiGirlz spent their lunch break either with us or their parents at the cafeteria and had the opportunity to get to know each other better.

From 1 pm to 4 pm OCG taught our highly motivated “daughters” for instance how to program their own game on our Surfaces, which the girls really seemed to enjoy.
At around 5 pm the Xbox Team provided us with their game consoles and thus, the girls got the unique possibility to become familiar with our product and to play different games together.
At the end of an eventful day our DigiGirlz were picked up by their parents again and Julia provided them with goodie bags to take their memories with them. Thanks to Julia the rest of the team the Wiener Töchtertag was a very successful and exciting day for all of us and we hope to see our DigiGirlz once again at Microsoft.

 

The first ever Microsoft student trainer event

Yesterday, April 27, for the first time ever we hosted a Microsoft student trainer event in our office. More than 20 students from four federal states and eight different universities got insights into OneNote, information on how to become a “Microsoftie” and an office tour, including sliding down our slide with a lot of *Huuuuui*.

The best way to appreciate what happened here is by quoting some of our participants:

“I can’t believe, I never knew about this tool! This would have facilitated my studies so much!”

“Great workshop, great event! Thanks, Microsoft!”

“The MACH positions (our trainee program, note) sound like a great opportunity – I’ll definitely look into applying.”

“OneNote is a great tool. I started using it a couple of weeks ago – but the features I got to see today blew me away even more.”

We’re very much looking forward to our participants giving on the workshops to their peers and to the next Microsoft student trainer event in October 2016.

Interns 2016 go Vienna City Marathon

3…2…1…los! Auch wir Interns waren beim diesjährigen Vienna City Marathon dabei und haben für unsere drei Staffelteams geschwitzt! Gestartet hat alles am Anfang des Internships, als wir uns dazu entschlossen haben, beim Staffelmarathon mitzulaufen. Wer welche Strecke läuft, war relativ schnell entschieden und unsere Team-Namen “MS Awesome”, “MS Amazing” und “MS Incredible” haben wir auch zügig gefunden – weil wir auch wirklich alle amazing, awesome und incredible sind!

 

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Zugegeben, es waren "nur" 9 km, aber ich habe es geschafft! 💪🏽 Wir haben alle unser Ziel erreicht und ich bin sehr stolz auf meine Kollegen! #microsoftaustria #viennacitymarathon #vcm2016 #runnig #teamspirit #teamwork #onemicrosoft #microsoft #medaille #comeasyouare #dowhatyoulove #microsoftinterns #vienna #igersaustria #msft

A post shared by Microsoft Österreich (@microsoft_at) on Apr 10, 2016 at 8:27am PDT

 

Dann ging das Trainieren los… Einige waren da etwas zielstrebiger, andere haben sich auf ihr Läufer-Können und eine Trainingseinheit verlassen (you know who you are!). Die paar Wochen zwischen Anmeldung und Marathon vergingen dann sehr schnell und schon war es der 10. April 2016. Alle haben sich bei den Staffelübergabe-Plätzen eingefunden und dann ging es leider mit etwas Chaos los: den nächsten Staffelläufer unter Hunderten anderen Laufbegeisterten zu finden ist echt nicht easy! Manchmal hat es gut geklappt, manchmal folgte nach dem Ziel-Endspurt dann noch minutenlanges Rumgebrülle bis dann endlich der nächste Läufer gefunden war. Schlussendlich sind alle erschöpft aber glücklich im Ziel angekommen und darauf sind wir mega stolz!

Mit dem Laufen gehen es jetzt die meisten wieder etwas ruhiger an, aber der Marathon war definitiv ein Riesen-Motivationsschub um wieder regelmäßiger die Laufschuhe zu schnüren. Interns 2016 go Vienna City Marathon – Challenge accepted and successfully accomplished! Somit: Keep on running!