Wired recently reported that employees at Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington campus are abundant with Apple Ipods:

To the growing frustration and annoyance of Microsoft’s management, Apple Computer’s iPod is wildly popular among Microsoft’s workers.

“About 80 percent of Microsoft employees who have a portable music player have an iPod,” said one source, a high-level manager who asked to remain anonymous. “It’s pretty staggering.”

The source estimated 80 percent of Microsoft employees have a music player — that translates to 16,000 iPod users among the 25,000 who work at or near Microsoft’s corporate campus. “This irks the management team no end,” said the source.

The story has many bloggers abuzz. In question is the story’s credibility in that it relies on only one source — who remained anonymous. Blogger Ed Bott has this to say about the story:

Well, having spent a fair amount of time around Microsoft’s campus, I can tell you that this story is mostly … what’s the word I’m looking for here? Ah yes, bullshit. I have no doubt that lots of Microsoft employees own iPods. But taking an offhand remark from an unknown source (who may or may not have a hidden agenda and who may or may not know what he’s talking about) and extrapolating it to the entire campus is just silly.

Blogger Paul Thurrott agreed:

The big question here, of course, is whether iPod usage at Microsoft is unusually high. That is, after all, the point of the article. Or is Kahney just stretching the truth yet again to write yet another pro-Apple story? That one’s easy, because I visit the Redmond campus several times a year. Kahney’s full of it. Utterly full of it. And I’m tired of this style of journalism. People like Kahney just demean my profession. And people who link to articles like this because it supports their love of the technology they support are just pathetic as well. Sorry, you’ve been outed.

Is there a Mac bias in the media? These bloggers seem to agree.