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Microsoft, Massachusetts, and IT
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Jun 19, 2006 07:42 AM
from the big-business-and-politics-go-together-so-well dept.
from the big-business-and-politics-go-together-so-well dept.
Andy Updegrove writes "A big story in Massachusetts last week was the announcement by Microsoft that it would give $30 million in software to Bay State high schools and universities. Less noticed was the fact that an important economic stimulus bill adopted by the legislature lacked the amendment that sought to gut the power of the State CIO to set any new IT policies that might require compliance with certain standards (like ODF) or favor open source software. Should these two dots be connected, and if so, how? After all, why would Microsoft reward Massachusetts for taking no action to curtail an IT policy that favored ODF and rejected Microsoft's own XML format, especially after Microsoft has by all accounts lobbied so aggressively to bring about a change? As it happens, the fact is that the game isn't over yet: I've learned that the IT policy language hasn't been permanently defeated — its just been shifted out of sight to an 'outside section' of the current budget bill."
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What Does the Microsoft ODF Converter Mean? 177 comments
Andy Updegrove writes "It's been a week now since Microsoft announced its ODF/Office open source converter project - time enough for 183 on-line stories to be written, as well as hundreds of blog entries (one expects) and untold numbers of appended comments. Lest all that virtual ink fade silently into obscurity, it seems like a good time to look back and try to figure out what it all means. In this entry, I report on a long chat with Microsoft's Director of Standards Affairs Jason Matusow, and match up his responses with the official messaging in the converter press release. The result is a picture of a continuing, if slow and jerky, evolution within Microsoft as those that recognize market demands for more openness debate those that want to follow the old way. This internal divide means that the proponents of change need to point to real market threats in order to justify incremental changes. This adaptation by reaction process leaves Microsoft still lagging the market, but has allowed those that favor a more open approach to gradually turn the battle ship a few degrees at a time."
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Large Companies & Education (Score:5, Insightful)
Depending on the complexity/use of your software, you put it either in the primary schools (K-12) or secondary schools (colleges). And you make it free and secure. Use license pools/server or anything to get your product into the learning process. That's where the money is. That's where you ensure your future.
Back in my undergrad days, I had access to Matlab, Pro Engineer, Mathematica, MSDN licenses, Windows XP, Rational Rose, the list goes on. I think it was Macintosh that originally discovered that putting your technology into the hands of your youth ensures your future. Why? Because Americans are predominantly lazy and we hate to climb learning curves. Macs especially build a sort of security sense that the user is safe and the machine is super friendly.
You might call this the "bottom up" approach to seeding the public with your product. Because the students aren't customers but one day they will be raised to be customers and they will decide what will be used. If you don't believe this model works, you're a fool. Time and time again I've caught myself saying, I wish I could just script this in Matlab and let it dump it to an Excel sheet. It's not that it would be easier, it's just that I know precisely how to do computations in Matlab due to my undergrad years of using it.
Now you have Microsoft trying to stop a "top down" effect in Massachusetts. Whereby they try their "MSDN Academic Alliance" strategy targeting a state's public schools. But why are they only targeting Massachusetts? Probably because of the ODF movement in the state government. If the government mandates that everyone (schools included) use ODF files and ODF software, where does that leave Microsoft? No longer the primary tool of the children, that's where.
What's the lesson to learn from this article? The squeaky wheel gets the oil!
Not enough funding for computers and software at your school? Well then, simply alert your local media and just try to enforce the ODF standard. I think you'll find that Microsoft will suddenly come (with the national media) to meet all your software needs!
Re:Large Companies & Education (Score:5, Interesting)
So if you establish Microsoft XML as the "standard" for politically powerful public schools, you've basically done an end-run around the state CIO. And when it comes time to ditch ODF, the teachers unions and school board associations will push hard to adopt whatever Microsoft is pushing.
Parent
Re:Large Companies & Education (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
The kids are the winners here. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The kids are the winners here. (Score:4, Insightful)
And having kids with the knowledge that nothing exists in this world except M$ products, it's this way all over the world, here in Egypt M$ subsidizes school software to the extent that it offers windows+office packages in the equivalent of less than $3 to students, and in the end we get students who don't know what's a spreadsheet or word processor, they only know Excel and Word etc..
Yet even in the US I recently read on a republican blogger's page someone comparing emacs (she called it emac) with M$ Word and dubbing emacs of being a word processor of lesser quality.
Parent
Re:The kids are the winners here. (Score:4, Insightful)
Break out the tinfoil hats everyone!
Parent
All Republicans are NOOBZ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's be fair here; being uninformed about what emacs is, and writing a poor comparison in her blog has NOTHING to do with being a Republican.
Parent
Re:All Republicans are NOOBZ? (Score:3, Funny)
Yes. Stupid Republicans! EVERYONE knows that EMACS is a better word processor than Word!
A few weeks ago in fact my EMACS program became sentient. It now does all my word processing for me and files my income taxes to boot. I supposed I should say ITS income taxes, as it got a job online, posing as me and now has a hefty six-figure income.
I'm getting rather tired
Re:The kids are the winners here. (Score:4, Interesting)
If it isn't done to the exclusion of learning anything else. More important to say, learn to read and write without the dubious aid of MS Word's squiggly lines first. I'd rate touch typing a much better skill to than knowing the vagaries of a particular word processor. The interface is constantly changing, but the important features are trivial to learn if you've used any alternative tool (since most mimic MS products now, as MS used to mimic Lotus and WordPerfect).
Parent
Re:The kids are the winners here. (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember in my undergrad years, I had a module called "Computing Fundaments 3" or somthing similar (but in spanish) where the teacher was supposed to teach how to use Excel. He gave us "Computing Fundamets 2" where we programmed in Visual Basic 6 (nothing fancy) and after finishing the module I told him it would be better for the students to learn the "guts" of a spreadsheet instead of learning just how to use the spreadsheet, we had a small discussion about it.
At the beginning of the "C.F.3" module, he told the grups that instead of learning something he was sure everybody knew (excel formulas etc etc) we were going to learn how to *make* a spreadsheet, so there we were programming a spreadsheet in C/C++. It was a really cool experience, it was de 3 semester of the undergrad and none of us had any idea about function parsing mechanisms and the like, the teacher gave us some photocopies of a very easy (albeit not efficient) algorithm. At the end of the course the different teams had different spreadsheets with differnt capabilities, it was really cool.
All this blah blah means that it is up to the teacher what students learn, and after all it is up to the students, I do not know how is in USA but at least from my one time undergrad experience in Mexico, almost all the students just go to the school for the score and the paper, and they do not care what the teacher will give, the other half do not have a clue of what the teacher will teach, so, it is up to YOU (the student[s] that know) to convince the teacher to focus on certain specific areas. It worked for me in a lot of courses during undergrad (granted, not for EVERY course) thus usually the "end of year projects" requeriments where fulfilled with my own home projects.
Parent
Re:The kids are the winners here. (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, a competitor did - Sun - when they bought StarOffice and spawned OpenOffice.
If we set the value of the two as being on par, then OpenOffice has donated more $$$ in termw of word processors, spread sheets, etc., than Microsoft. Also, this "donation" didn't cost Microsoft $30 million. I'd be surprised if the hard costs were over $30,000 (and that the costs of publicizing it are more than the "donaton" itself) - a cost that is a tax w
Wrong.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The schools can keep their $30 Million in the pocket when they use Open Source software just as well. The difference being that in a year from now they can get the next version for free too...
Parent
Re:Wrong.. (Score:4, Interesting)
I work at a school district. We use StarOffice for most of the PCs here because Texas' stupid "Robin Hood" law strips us of about $22,000,000 a year, forcing across-the-board budget cuts. We *wish* we could use MS Office, because that's what the students need to know when the enter the workforce. Yes, it'd be better if they knew both. Yes, it sucks that MS has such a stranglehold on the market that we have to think this way. No, I'm not going to compromise student education for the sake of my ideals.
Parent
Re:Wrong.. (Score:3, Interesting)
it is quite interesting here - a lot of companies, big and small, are starting to use more and more oss offerings. biggest drivers are firefox (which in't that huge as basic functionality is very, very similar for web browsers) and openoffice.org.
from the privately owned companis that i know almost all are using oo.org to some extent (though almost all have one or two msoffice copies for problematic files).
most users
Hmm, (Score:5, Insightful)
If that were the case, then perhaps educated students would be able to rapidly adapt to new interfaces rather than being stuck when a different product (or a new version of the product they were schooled on) is put in front of them?
IMO, kids that memorize button positions rather than learning principles are always going to be less productive, as even the same exact product will go through version changes, menus are replaced with ribbons, the UI flavor of the day (say docking windows or floating animated helpers) is tried out, etc.
IME, the real world in IT is one of constant change, and the folks best positioned to thrive there are the ones who are able to easily cope with multiple interfaces to the same basic task or principle.
Parent
Re:Hmm, (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, when I left school I could write using nothing other than a "number 2" pencil. It was a tragedy which left me ill prepared for college. If only they had taught me to use any pencil, a mechanical one or even a pen, then my life would have been changed forever.
Re:Wrong..YOU are Wrong... (Score:3, Insightful)
When I was growing up and going through grade school MS Office didn't have the monopoly it does now. I learned on Word Perfect, a bit on Lotus products, and some oth
Re:Wrong.. (Score:3, Insightful)
As a Texan myself, I say yippee. Do you really expect that if Robin Hood disappeared the multiple school districts benefitting from your $22 mil would be able to purchase Microsoft Office for _their_ students? Of course not. The whole point of Robin Hood is to force all Texas schools to suffer the consequences of extreme inequity. Poor districts ca
Re:Wrong.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm a huge fan of OSS and I'm trying to get my company to adopt linux and/or open office. (I'm an analyst, not technically in the IS infrastructure, but since the IS infrastructure is one person and the entire company is just over 20 people - it may work.) But these are bu
Re:Wrong.. (Score:3, Insightful)
The main reason it is not a bad thing is because most jobs in this country that aren't purely physical labor require the knowledge of Microsoft Office applications. Whether it's a future you appreciate or not, there is no reason that these kids shouldn't be prepared for the future they will be dumped in to - especiall
Re:Wrong.. (Score:4, Interesting)
This analogy reflects unduly harshly on the drug trade because once kids are addicted, they can go to *ANY* drug dealer and score a hit. Microsoft's game is much more insidious, because you can only score your next hit from them. Drug dealers sell a commodity item in an open and free market. Please consider this before insulting them by comparing their business practices to Microsoft's again!
Parent
Re:The kids are the winners here. (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides, in the end, if they go with an open document specification, they may end up saving the equivalent in money that way. It's also $30 milllion in software that was donated, not cash. It's bribery, and in public infrastructure when the company making the "donation" is the topic of hot discussion, it's clearly corruption.
The entire process of getting ODF in Massachusetts stinks. Those arguing against it are using invalid arguments, and now it's being pushed in a bill that's unrelated (I don't care how much of a good cause something is... all these rider bills are a plague upon the public as well). Not to mention the amount of pressure a company from a different state is capbable of putting on a state government.
P.S., I'm running the State House in my own state becuase I am that fed up with seeing this kind of thing.
You should try it... it's a heck of a learning experience, even if you don't win. Still hoping to win, though.
Parent
Re:The kids are the winners here. (Score:4, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptio
Based on the assumption that perception and reality are correlated and the CPI measure accurately measures perceived corruption in a standardized way, the US is definitely far less corrupt than most countries of the world, but there are several countries that a significantly less corrupt than the US.
Back on topic, the "donation" might have a lot more to do with Google than ODF. The money seems to be geared towards web delevopment tools. One thing Microsoft has been pushing is XAML as a web standard to replace HTML. If Microsoft can succeed in getting children to be hooked on XAML and Microsoft specific tools instead of web standards, schools will pump out children without crossplatform skills. These children will bring their MS centric viewpoint into the workforce, and that may change company's intranet (or internet) policies. Let's face it, you can design much fancier applications in something like XAML or XUL with less headaches, but sacrifices have to be made if you want to be crossplatform, avoid vendor lock-in, and have added infrastructure flexibility. It's hard to convince with people with a "Microsoft is the only thing out there, they created web standards better than any crossplatform standard and everyone uses IE and MS is so big that it will last for ever and everyone else had better adapt or die out of being useless" view of the world that these things matter. That, IMO, is what Microsoft is counting on more than anything else.
Parent
Re:The kids are the winners here. (Score:3, Insightful)
I just wonder how it is allowed BY law, because it is clearly dumping from monopoly in one vitally important market segment.
Post scriptum: free software doesn't have monopoly, so don't even brother with arguing about that...
Re:The kids are the winners here. (Score:3, Interesting)
The motive is obviously a long-term strategy, to forestall any ideas schools may have of using anything but MS software.
Their schools are now going to have some money that would have been spent on software
Only if they were going to buy the software MS is now giving them. Very likely in the absence of the gift (which despite its stated value of "$30 million", costs MS a few dollars in CD replication charges) they would have struggled on with their current sof
Re:The kids are the winners here. (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know.... About three years ago I was living in Thailand and actively involved in the hot Linux uptake there. The government had a five year plan to move to Linux and was promoting it everywhere. The Thais in the gov't FLOSS program were even talking about "official government OS" for LinuxTLE (NECTEC's distro). People were talking about the empowerment of the local IT business and over half of the computers on display in Carrefour and Lotus were running locally produced Linux. Thailand even famously broke MS's "one price around the world" policy. It was like a revolution under colonial rule, I kid you not.
After a year of this, MS walked in and offered a "deal" which legitimized all the currently installed MS operating systems within the government and promised lots of software for schools. Since the schools were mostly without computers and the government had the same problem with copyright infringement that the rest of the country had / has. It cost MS nothing but the price of the plane ticket and maybe some money under the table -- I don't know about that.
The FLOSS movement died right there. Nobody talked about it anymore, and I can't even find Linux in the stores anymore. The revolutionaries were quieted and the unrest was quelled. Everyone went back to being the good little MS users they were "supposed" to be.
There's something truly evil about a deal like this. The kids in Thailand certainly didn't profit by losing their empowerment to a foreign company. The IT industry is again dependent on one.
Now that I'm in Korea, I keep hearing the same kind of talk here, but I've never even SEEN an installed Linux system outside my own.
Too much talking on my part.
Parent
Wrong, the children LOST! (Score:5, Insightful)
The schools would have a lot more than $30 million if they didn't spend any money at all on commercial software, using free software instead. Free software in schools is interesting in that it's one thing that's both better and cheaper at the same time.
What constitutes a better education? Should children learn to push buttons, or should they learn the fundamentals? Using MS-Office in schools because that's what most of them will use professionally later is like having them read the National Enquirer instead of Moby Dick.
Parent
So it would seem (Score:3, Insightful)
Apparently, that is, up until now. Maybe this is the one of the reasons he's leaving as CIO (well that and to get out of the way of Vista, since there's no Dave Culter to tell him to stop pestering the project this time). Maybe he just doesn't want to be seen as a corporate dirtbag any longer, or at least, further legitimatize real philanthropic pursuits. Then, maybe not.
Re:So it would seem (Score:3, Interesting)
I do think he will still have a long way to go to shed the more tarnished aspects of his reputation (that may be impossible among the geek community, but MUCH more likely among the general public). But at
Re:So it would seem (Score:3, Informative)
"Should" they be connected?! (Score:4, Funny)
Please tell me you're not from the US -- please!
Because if you're from the US the question is the height of naivete and clearly demonstrates you don't have a clue about how US politics work and the levels of bribery and corruption inherent in US politics.
Re:"Should" they be connected?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Is there some sort of filtering process during slashdot's account creation process that requires you make stupid, overzealous statements about the evils of government and politics? If you honestly believe the US is a bastion of corruption, you should try visiting a few other continents. My family is from Iran, and I've been back plenty of times, and I have to bribe the goddamned luggage handlers so I can get out of the airport in a timely fashion. And that's the tip of the freaking iceberg. I've been to Japan, Turkey, Hungary, Romania (where policemen are beaten for reporting police brutality), Bulgaria, the UK, France, and let me assure you, bribery and corruption are everywhere. I'm by no means a nationalist, but I know a good thing when I see it, and you have no idea how much better the US is when it comes to the rule of law.
P.S. Don't even get me started on Mexico.
Parent
Re:"Should" they be connected?! (Score:5, Insightful)
So the gist of your argument is that corruption here in the US is ok because it's not as bad as some other places? That's got to be the weakest argument I've ever heard. Corruption should be fought whenever it is found. Yes, maybe things are better here, but they could be better still if we'd fight this kind of thing whenever it rears its ugly head. That's how we keep things better here.
Parent
Re:"Should" they be connected?! (Score:3, Insightful)
I was born and raised in the US. My family is from Iran; I am not, at least not technically.
I really can't take you seriously after this point. If you honestly believe this, you have not trave
Re:"Should" they be connected?! (Score:3, Insightful)
I really can't take you seriously after this point. If you honestly believe this, you have not travelled enough. Our government provides the most avenues for recourse for the general citizen than any other form of government today. We have plenty of problems, (my particular beef is with the overbearing power of the oil lobby, and our completely asinine foreign policy when it comes to Israel), but we are light-years ahead of any other form of government, and really any other system in the world that I've se
Why Assume Bribes When Extortion is a Possibility? (Score:4, Insightful)
Like Microsoft's monopoly or not (I don't), they ran into problems in the late 90s because they didn't give out much campaign contributions. They learned their lesson well.
Makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Having a software monopoly helps to hold the monopoly together. They're smart, so they seek to maintain their monopoly even when it causes them to lose money.
In short, this is just a good investment for Microsoft.
Re:Makes sense (Score:3, Insightful)
Maintaining a monopoly is important for Microsoft's future because the biggest advantage of using Microsoft software at the moment is that Word and Excel files will always open, drivers will always be available, and you'll always be able to play DVDs/video files/MP3s.
Proprietary file formats are incredibly important for Microsoft. By getting people to use Microsoft software, even if it's being given away, Microsoft are benefiting.
A two-headed chicken... (Score:4, Funny)
Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
Large Charity Tax Deduction for MSFT (Score:5, Insightful)
And don't forget about the anti-trust settlement which allowed them to print money in the form of free software [zdnet.com] on CDs. Now, that's a sweet deal any company would jump at. Apple's opposed [com.com] the deal since it hurt them.
I Think We Have Discovered Office's Value (Score:5, Insightful)
Heck, I use office products all day every day, on one machine that has M$ office, and one that has OO.o and I can't say that I have noticed a significant difference in terms of my productivity, either.
Re:I Think We Have Discovered Office's Value (Score:3, Insightful)
Not when Microsoft's version offers utilities and functionale (particularly in Excel) that doesn't exist in OO.org's offerings (as an engineer... as of the 1.9.104 release there was enough missing to make it counterproductive). I can offer you a piece of toast for a nickel, that doesn't mean that a full 5-course meal should run a nickel as well...
Why favor OSS? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why favor OSS? (Score:3, Insightful)
Recently governments in the US have begun working only for people who make the most campaign donations and not doing what is best for all. If the government were to invest its vast resources into supporting OSS instead of closed solutions, then all of the people would reap the benefits of their investment and not just a select few. I agree the government should be pragmatic in determining what to spend tax dollars on, b
Re: reward (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't a reward: this is good marketing. It's marketing because it costs Microsoft next to nothing to give software away (they've already paid to create it, and MA wouldn't buy it from them -- hence, very little lost $$). However, by giving it to students, they can train future generations on their software, thus helping to lock them into Windows & Office. When these students go out into the Real World, their only software experiences will be on MS stuff -- and thus, their employers will have incentives to use MS stuff rather than retrain them for something else. It's good marketing because, as stated above, it doesn't cost MS much $$. And smart companies always jump at the chance for cheap marketing.
Monopoly is Its Own Reward (Score:5, Insightful)
With so many colleges, Massachusetts is very influential in forming "software habits", apart from its rank as the 4th most populous state.
If Microsoft can use those "free bags" of smack to lure the state into making Microsoft's brand of junk into law, that's a big bonus. But just getting the kids hooked is worth doing, even if they have to wait for the state to require addiction.
The cost of this "gift": ~$15M USD (Score:4, Insightful)
So 50k machines out and say $300 per seat (IMO way too low but ...) equals $15M USD in hardware upgrade costs.
Before people freak clearly some machines would need replacing anyways but how many could be still used if they running something like ubuntu, xubuntu (lighter system requirements than the stock ubuntu) or even pupply gnu/linux? Why not phase in the upgrades and squeak an extra year or two out of the older hardware?
This is not a dig against MS but at the MA elected folks that agreed to this IMO costly "gift".
Re:speaking of self interest (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:I am a disgusted MS stockholder (Score:3, Funny)
"New"?