[dundee] Microsoft tactics - Universities

[gordon dunlop]

Hi James,
Great post, just the person I want to talk to regarding some of my 
previous posts. I want you to confirm that this great benevolence of 
Santa Gates in giving away Office 2007 at knockdown prices is not only 
happening in Academic Institutions but also in Health Boards. I told my 
wife that she can get Office 2007 Professional for only £10 and if she  
wanted to benefit from Uncle Bill's  bargain basement prices (sic)  then 
it is up to her. She was not really interested  as she is happy using 
Office 2003 (for work purposes) and is not interested in using an alien 
system of using a ribbon interface. She is not interested in computers, 
she just wants the work to be done using the applications she is 
comfortable with. She uses openoffice in Fedora 7 for non-work purposes 
and is reasonably comfortable with it as the toolbars and menus are 
similar in a way with Office 2003. There is an odd grumble when 
openoffice does not have a functionality that Office 2003 has, above 
that it works O.K. for her. I reckon that Microsoft are trying to cover 
their blushes in that people in general do not want to buy or use Office 
2007 and that they are targeting specific Institutions into using their 
products at knockdown prices.

Gordon


James Young wrote:
> In personal experience of Microsoft/EDS contracts it looks great - of 
> course, the people making the decisions above us don't take the time 
> to perceive the costs of the outsource.