Google Xmas Bonus: Dog Food

Wow, times must be hard at the GooglePlex. Most years, Google hotshots can look forward to holiday cash bonuses of up to $20,000 apiece. This year, Valleywag reports, the company has decided to give everyone ... one of their new Android phones, which retail for $180. You might say that's something of a comedown.

Valleywag claims to have obtained the pertinent memo from Google, which we're happy to shamelessly crib from. These aren't just any old smartphones, the memo breathlessly reports; they can function as Wi-Fi devices, and they've been customized so "they would work anywhere in the world." Well, except for the following countries: India, China, Brazil, Korea, Israel, Russia, Argentina, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mexico, Turkey, Kenya, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Egypt, Chile, and the Ukraine.

Why is Google doling out the phones in lieu of cash, especially the "fat wad of" variety that usually comes around this year? "First, we've never developed anything like the Android software before and this represented a unique opportunity to celebrate that achievement," reads the memo. Second, they're running outta dough: "The current economic crisis requires us to be more conservative about how we spend our money." Gee, ya think?

Valleywag gets a little purple about the whole affair. "This is what has become of the company that was once deemed the best place in the world to work: Cancelled bonuses and unpaid labor," writes reporter Owen Thomas. CNet night news editor Steven Musil has a slightly different take. "Here in the real world, while many in the tech industry have received pink slips, Google employees are receiving a gift—oh yeah, it is a gift—that many people would love to find under their trees," he writes. InformationWeek's Eric Zeman concurs: "Hey, it's better than nothing, right?"

Finally, Gizmodo, which helped break the story, notes that this is part of a longtime tech, um, tradition, in which companies hand out their toys to their own employees to beta test them for bugs and get feedback on how to improve the next generation. The toys have been dubbed "dog food" by techies, and Gizmodo has thought up a fun illo for Google's latest foray into handing out the Alpo. Click here to see it.