Microsoft Would Settle For The Children

The news from MSNBC is that Microsoft wants to, er, settle for the children. Take that whichever way you want. They propose to settle civil anti-trust cases (not the DoJ suit) with a $1.1 billion (retail value) spanking (they have $36 billion in the bank), consisting of free computer goodies to our nation's poorest schools (the first hit's free, kids). I'm sure Microsoft will upgrade those old computers to keep them current, in perpetuity, for free, out of the kindness of their hearts, but in an apparent oversight that was left out of the news report. Of that $1.1 billion, $0.9 billion will be software presumably valued at whatever Microsoft wants to charge (see "monopoly"). For hardware and (laughable) training/support costs, Microsoft will be docked three weeks' worth of interest on their cashpile; they will seek matching funds for the remainder, I am not making this up. Some lawyers opposed this but "concluded that Microsoft's monopoly already is so pervasive that students would have to learn to use these products anyway in the workplace." Update: 11/20 21:22 GMT by M : Heh. Red Hat offers an alternative to Microsoft's settlement proposal - you provide hardware, we'll provide software.

article w/o MS influence...

[jeffy124]

... at wired: http://www.wired.com/news/antitrust/0,1551,48543,0 0.html [wired.com]

Re:Let me get this straight....

[dillon_rinker]

Facts:
1. It is legal for MS to be a monopoly.
2. It is illegal for MS to abuse their monopoly power.

#1 is the result of consumer decisions; that's why it's legal. #2 is the result of MS decisions. So, to answer your question, it stops at the point when Microsoft stops illegally abusing their perfectly legal monopoly status.

Stop teaching products.......

[the_2nd_coming]

concluded that Microsoft's monopoly already is so pervasive that students would have to learn to use these products anyway in the workplace.

and start teaching concepts!!!

no one needs to know how to use MS Word, they jut need to know the basic fundimentals of how to navigate a computer GUI, how to use a mouse, how to type, and some general features that are intrinsic in all applicationslike save, copy, paste, ect. then terach them how to use a wordproccesor, ie how to pick a font, hoe to pick font size, how to type, how to save, etc. these skills will teach children what they need so they can have a much easier time moving from one platform to another or from Word to Word perfect or star office. it is more valuable to be cappable of picking up a piece of software, looking at it for a few min while you apply your previouse knowlege, and then begin to use it than it is to just know how to use a spesific piece of software.

I am in desktop support, I don't know everything, but if a person asks me how to do somthing, I can figure it out even if I have never used the application before (I work for a state agency, lots of diffrent custom crap software).

skills like that are what is important, not memorising how to save a document in word, but to know what to look for when you want to save somthing.

Look at it this way

[Tim Macinta]

Suppose for a moment that Disney has been convicted of lacing their movies with illegal, subliminal messages to trick viewers into purchasing Disney products. Suppose that to make ammends they offer to donate $1B worth of "educational" videos to schools but that these "educational" videos also contain the subliminal messages. Would you support the Disney "settlement" in this case? Sure kids may learn a little more with the new videos, but as a side effect the original problem of subliminal messages not only persists but is actually made much worse through the expansion of their audience into these schools. Now replace "Disney" with "Microsoft" and "subliminal messages" with "anti-competitive behaviour" and you have the situation with Microsoft.

Re:Let me get this straight....

[baronben]

well, in many cases you are. My sister goes to Drew U, where each student gets a free (read: 5,000 fee built into tuition) laptop. If say she or someone else at Drew wants to upgrade, they'll have to get Windows becuse the programs that the school runs, the propritary softwear distributed by the school for classes and suchnot, are windows. She _cannot_ get a mac (though considering she's an Art Histroy major, don't think she'll be taking the X challange anytime soon). This goes for many other colleges that distribute laptops to their students.

Re:Let me get this straight....

[czardonic]

The only problem with your theory is that X is just as likely, if not more, to be weaned on MacOS than on Windows. Up to your final assumption about not becoming a geek, X describes me pretty well. I went to public and private schools on two different continents and I never dealt with Windows until after I graduated from college. Everything from middle school forward was all Mac.

Ever since then, I have used a PC.

Re:article w/o MS influence...

[zeno_2]

Ive actually seen a couple articles in msnbc that dont shed a good light on Microsoft. I was pretty suprised myself, but generally you are very correct..

IMHO Wired is a much better place to get news from, I don't know much about who they are owned by or anything, but their paper mag is great, and the online site has news updates quite a bit..

Ever write educational software?

[ObligatoryUserName]

Apple's educational market-share is rigid, teachers don't want to learn new systems. We're always having to make sure everything works on Windows and Macs because we know that the majority of school computers are made by Apple. That's why Macromedia's authoring products (Flash/Director/Authorware) are so popular for games aimed at the younger audience - they allow easy cross-platform development.

Re:Taxes

[Eric Seppanen]

Ha! You think Microsoft pays taxes? [nytimes.com]

Anti-FUD Service

[Anonymous Coward]

at least one of the points at issue is that M$ has been forcing hardware vewndors who sell its product to not carry competing products (ie. if you want to make a PC with Windows on it you can't sell PCs with Linux or Be, or etc on it).

This statement is utter bullshit. MS did not FORCE PC makers to do anything, and they didn't say they could not sell other OS's. What they said was "we will license to you Windows for price X (a very cheap rate) if you agree to sell it as the only OS for that model PC, or we will sell you licenses for price Y (a more expense price) if you don't want to agree. The PC makers than rubbed their greedy hands together and made your decision for you. Then, when the DOJ came calling, they cried "OH BIG BAD MS MADE US!". The PC makers decided that their profits were more important than your choice, not MS.

anti-Anti-FUD Service

[JimmytheGeek]

Well, M$ presented Gateway, HP, Compaq, and Dell with a choice: stay in business or don't. IBM dared to offer OS/2 Warp as an option and they were denied win95 for one or two of the crucial seasons for pc's (back to school or xmas, I forget which, but it's in the Findings of Fact which have been accepted at every appellate level). IBM never regained the lost market share.

They also DID force computer makers who used their OS to place IE on the desktop in preference to Netscape.

Both actions are illegal. 100% bullshit free.

200,000 computers -- what a coincidence.

[FreeMars]

Microsoft is offering 200,000 used (a.k.a. "reconditioned") computers over the next 5 years. We know the software will cost them next to nothing; how much is the hardware worth?

This Microsoft page [microsoft.com] suggests there are at least 40,000 computers on the main Microsoft campus (search for the first "40,000" on the page). Since they want employees to use their latest and greatest version of Windows, Microsoft needs to replace computers frequently. Old boxes are just too slow. Replace each of 40K computers once a year for 5 years -- how many old boxes do you need to dispose of?

200,000

What a coincidence.

Are you on an M$ payroll?

[Erris]

Or do you post long winded pro M$ rants for fun? I mean, who would write posts praising MSIE only extensions? Defending the [slashdot.org] slowness [slashdot.org] of XP? Or saying that M$ junk is all most people want or need [slashdot.org]? Give me a break. If you are going to troll, you need to space your offensive comments out over time so they don't show you up. Having said all of that, yeah, they're being overly monopolistic, and yes, this is a rediculously small punishment for what they've been caught doing.

"Overly monopolistic"? I'm sorry, you might just be stupid.

Re:Here's a flame for you.

[erat]

You seem to be implying that the best way to learn how to use computers is to offer open APIs w/ an open code base, reams of documentation at every level, and avid support world-wide. You also seem to think that compled UIs with all available options right there in front of new users is a good thing. Here's another enumerated list for you:

1) "Using" a computer is not the same as developing on a computer. Here lies the fallacy that is dragging down Linux and other open-source OSes: end users don't care about APIs, cool developer tools, and open source code. They care about *using* computers. When I said that developers needed to put end-users in front of developer coolness, this is the *exact* thing that I was talking about. If you're an open source developer, you need to stop thinking like a developer and start thinking like an end user. Computers are tools, and when they're made accessible to the masses they can unleash all kinds of wonderful stuff; make them cryptic w/ GUIs that encapsulate 100% of the functionality, refer folks to source code and APIs to learn how to make things happen, and send them to newsgroups and mail lists where they'll be flamed for not reading the comment the developer put in header file X before asking questions, and you'll lose a potentially valuable user base. Let's face it: free/open-source developers more often than not write apps for other free/open-source developers. Your comments illustrate this nicely.

2) There's more to computer-oriented careers than software development. More people use computers than develop for them. Again, you're illustrating how developer-centric this realm is. I'm saying you need to step out of this before making a real difference for these OSes.

3) "Dumbed-down" user interfaces are necessary for the average human. You and I may be able to configure DNS using a command line and vi, or even a slightly dumbed down UI like webmin, but the average IT guy won't. Yes, intelligently weeding out the complex stuff and leaving that to command line folks or another GUI under an "Advanced" button makes sense. I would welcome more dumbed down GUIs on Linux/BSD/whatever. It would make my life easier (less questions to repeatedly answer).

4) You completely missed my point about web services and browsers. If an IT group is faced with a decision to either swap out an OS so that some different software can be run or just keep an OS around (like Windows) that will work just fine with a web services application, there is absolutely, positively NO reason to go through the IT headache of changing OSes on hundreds of computers company-wide. What you're saying is that if the browser on Windows and the browser on Linux works fine, then there's no reason not to switch to Linux. Huh?... Have you ever deployed anything across an entire company before? Leave-it-alone is the best policy when it comes to situations like this.

5) I don't know exactly where you're seeing these "reams of documentation", but after using Linux for 10 years I still am amazed at how poorly documented it is. The mass-market books available in bookstores are good for pressing flowers, but most of them aren't worth much more. And if you're talking about the ancient man page collections and HOWTOs/FAQs, they're in sad shape as well. And even when these things are "complete", they're so cryptic that without prior experience you'll have a lovely time trying to figure out what the hell you're supposed to do to get effect X out of utility Y. In other words, the documentation sucks.

Try again.

Article on CNN

[burtonator]

Here is CNNs take of the whole thing.

http://money.cnn.com/2001/11/20/technology/micro so ft/index.htm