Google gives away phones instead of cash

search engine Google is giving its employees Android phones this year instead of the traditional Christmas cash bonus.

The company told employees that the Android-phone gift is a way to save cash and "celebrate" the Android technology.  Staff will also be reminded that times are tight and they were lucky to have jobs.

More than 85% of employees will get a phone instead of cash a person described as "familiar with the matter" told Bloomberg.

Valleywag.com got its hands on an internal memo which said that that the current economic crisis requires us to be more conservative about how it spends its money.

"Some of you will of course be wondering why we decided to change from a cash bonus to the Dream phone… First, we've never developed anything like the Android software before and this represented a unique opportunity to celebrate that achievement, " the memo said.

Apparently staff globally have been asking for the Dream phone. "This is a chance for us to once again dogfood a product and make it even better! We felt that giving the Dream phone would be a great holiday present -- something we could all celebrate."

Google employees who work in Turkey, Kenya, Brazil, Russia and India, where the phone does not work will get $400 cash instead.