Tech bytes for tea?

I call it N Wow! Microsoft Singapore demonstrated how it has transited from a traditional fixed-room-and-desk office layout, to a Starbucks-style working environment where employees can work at ANY available desk in its six floors of office space at One Marina Boulevard in Singapore.

No more assigned desks. Click to enlarge to see more of the new way of work.

What happens to the personal paraphernalia that adorn the typical office cubicle or room?

Well each employee, including Managing Director Jessica Tan, gets a locker to store their personal effects.

Plenty of collaboration spaces.

Each desk comes with power-sockets, a wireless mouse and keyboard, and a Samsung monitor that comes with a privacy screen.

Nothing else – not even a phone.

A single cable from the monitor plugs into the employee’s laptop.

In addition to connecting the display to the monitor, the same cable also provides Internet connection to the laptop, as well as control over the wireless mouse and keyboard.

Every floor has a “landing area” at the entrance – a convenient rendezvous point.

Why isn’t there a phone?

Employees rely on Microsoft’s Lync telephony and collaboration solution which allows them to communicate using the Internet.

It is now as easy to work from home as it is to work in the office.

Yet more employees prefer to come physically to the office than to work from home – because of the more open and spontaneous collaborative environment the revamp has facilitated.

For a start, there’re no walls and cubicles between employees.

Workers can choose a private booth to dock-in if they really need to work on or discuss about something really confidential.

But by-and-large, most work in the open, at one of the docking desks.

Overview of rooms and workstations. Reminiscent of Metro UI?

Microsoft Singapore invited the regional media to walk around their operational offices to see this concept live.

I suppose this is Microsoft’s way of demonstrating how their technology can help enterprises and businesses adapt to the latest trends of work, where people tend to collaborate more in the course of work.

Instead of a concept demo, Microsoft is showing how they walk the talk – in fact, they’ve been working this concept in Amsterdam for the past five years..

And it was an impressive walkabout – to see what many organisations have only talked or dreamed about.

Samsung SUR40Pixelsense. Seen at Microsoft Technology Centre at One Marina Boulevard in Singapore.