[dundee] Microsoft tactics - Universities

[William Cameron]

I completely agree.

In a similar fashion it is seen in programming, where universities will use for various reasons, including those listed below, microsoft developer suites, such as Visual Studio to code VB and C++ and C# for example... when students finish their courses, enter the 'real world' and do what they've studied for the past four years for real, they will default to the tools they were introduced to in the early years of their training...

In a similar fashion school kids nowadays can be seen favoring Windows over Linux (what's that? oh that sounds difficult..), becuase they have essentially been brought up through school life using Microsoft Word and Windows for subjects at high school.. i don't recall higher computing covering how to recompile a kernel, or teaching me how to use a unix shell... it was all point and click, ctrl+alt+del's.... (and blue screens :p)

Anyway, thats my friday night rant over with.. tune in next week for another exciting episode!

Bill



> Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 22:43:52 +0100
> From: gordon at zubenel.freeserve.co.uk
> To: dundee at mailman.lug.org.uk
> CC: 
> Subject: [dundee] Microsoft tactics - Universities
> 
> A new theory, by targeting University students with ultra-low prices and 
> special deals to Universities in licensing of machines,i.e, for every 
> Windows OS license we will chuck in a free copy of Office (3 times the 
> cost of the OS license) are they trying to control the future. It may 
> cost Microsoft $1 billion to do this, profits are $12 billion annually, 
> why ? I think that Universities are the breeding grounds for the future 
> leaders of technology and society in general, yes people with little 
> educational background can reach the top, 95% of computer programmers, 
> technical engineers & scientists have University backgrounds. By trying 
> to mold them within their system means a certain amount of control over 
> them e.g. I like Microsoft because they helped me in doing my 
> dissertation. In business, law and social studies, by being used to 
> their systems when you rise up the ranks you will be Microsoft 
> orientated.  There is one profession where Microsoft is limited and that 
> is in science, as a former scientist I had windows on my desktop but for 
> serious number crunching I could only use Unix with programming in 
> Fortran (shows my age). It is still true to today that scientists use 
> Linux for the flexibility, control and programming capabilities that 
> cannot be had in the Windows system. It is a peculiar theory and I could 
> be completely wrong about this, but if it creates dialogue within the 
> Linux user group that is OK. It is better to say something rather than 
> nothing as we can only learn by our mistakes.
> 
> gordon
> 
> 
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