[Wolves] Re: M$ Lock-in.

[Mark Harrison]

Be very, very, careful about this line of argument.

While it's true in some cases, we shouldn't lose site of the fact that 
the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is one of the largest sponsors of 
medical and (non-IT) education programmes in the world.

Things like mobile (book) libraries on boats on Bangladesh.


You may play the pedant and claim that Microsoft is not the same as the 
Foundation, but pedantry is seldom a good way to convince people of 
anything :-)


It is easy to forget that the US has a tradition going back to the 
Rockerfellers of mega-rich company founders giving away huge sums to 
charities, as opposed to the UK where our super-rich tend to aim to 
create dynasties.

M.


Howard Berry wrote:

> I feel we must make the point as often as we can wherever we can 
> that Microsoft does not provide sponsorship of this form in education 
> out of pure altruism but to make sure that the next generation is 
> locked into their products.