Microsoft's Software Philanthropy: The Goodwill Ploy 602
bethanie writes "The New York Times has printed a story concerning Microsoft's plans to 'significantly increase its donation of software to the nation's nonprofit organizations, to a level that may approach $1 billion annually in the next three to four years. ...But the increase has also drawn objections from developers of 'open source' programs (programs for which the source code is freely distributed). Those critics say they believe Microsoft is using a giveaway strategy to undercut the so-called free software movement in the potentially promising nonprofit market.' What do you think? Is it true philanthropy or just another tactic to assimilate everyone into the MS collective?"
Both (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow (Score:1, Insightful)
Where do I start with this one? Undercut the free software market??? WTF.
Rather like dealing drugs (Score:4, Insightful)
Explain to me again... (Score:3, Insightful)
When both prices are nil, what's left to compare but individual merit and the availability of technical support?
Deductions, baby! (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, if the scuttlebutt is that MS uses other loopholes to dodge all its taxes are true, then it's a moot point.
I'm sure to be modded down... (Score:3, Insightful)
As much as we all hate the evil empire, for them it's damned if they do, and damned if they don't.
Look at it this way, the money is going to worthwhile causes, be happy it's doing someone other than a rich investor, or evil Bill himself, some good.
Mike
I think the point is simple.. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is basically the same as the RIAA giving me a bunch of MP3 files of music I wouldn't have bought anyhow and claiming they gave me a thousand dollars of music.
Or like me saying I have a baseball card that's worth $100,000. It's only worth that if someone will buy it. If no one will buy it, then it's a piece of cardboard with a picture on it.
The moral of the story is that they're giving away something that costs them nothing to a market group that wouldn't have bought their stuff otherwise, and keeping Free software out.
That makes no sense. (Score:3, Insightful)
Did somebody forget to proofread this article before posting? That makes no sense - how in the fuck can you undercut a free product? How is such a market "promising" if no sales are made? How is there even what could be called a "market" for something that is free? Doesn't one have to buy or sell in a market?
I think the Free Software people are just jealous because Microsoft, too, figured out that giving away their software for free is a good idea. God, it's like you people want to see non-profits be deprived of choices or special benefits in the market. Truly the mark of a zealot - you people were probably the same people who wanted to see Skylarov kept in prison so he could be the test case for your DMCA challange.
Re:Rather like dealing drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
"We'll encrypt all your organisational data
into MS-specifc file formats... for free.."
Once the hapless nonprofit is hooked,
start charging market rates...
Does Seeding Work? (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, Apple flooded the school systems 15 years ago with pretty good little systems. They were used to teach typing, accounting, and basic computer skills... What did all that effort earn Apple?
Not much in my opinion. Maybe it always works... maybe the Apple episode is the exception.
Risking Karma here... I am predominately a windows user; however, I cheer for linux as much as humanly possible. I think the competition is wonderful for the consumer and the market.
Davak
Re:Explain to me again... (Score:5, Insightful)
A price could still be charged for the software (albiet less than microsoft) and the company could offer enhanced support at an added cost. Microsoft giving away its software means it is cheaper than even the open source alternatives and if it is available, orginizations may not even begin to research alternatives.
Its not free vs free, its free(but used to be expensive) vs free (in concept, but lower in cost), that is why microsoft would be undercutting the open source alternatives
Hmm. Saw something like this in _Free for All_ (Score:3, Insightful)
Chapter 12 of Free for All [wayner.org] analyzes the differences between Microsoft's version of charity and the open source's version. It sort of anticipated this debate by a few years and it also asks the very interesting question about tax deductions. Just how much did M$ write off for these deductions? The full cost of the software? The list price? Or just the amortized cost of development? Or perhaps the most honorable, nothing at all. That's how much the FSF takes off their taxes.
Tax writeoff. (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as the packaged software is concerned, a copy of Windows (any version) Office (any version) or any other piece of software Microsoft donates to charity, the cost is the raw material involved in the package, and the cost of duplication for the content. Also by donating copies of software packages to charity, they bring down the total cost of production per unit.
The 1 Billion dollar value, per year, is far more likely to be related to the MSRP price Microsoft puts on the product, than on the material cost.
While I am sure that a part of this has to do with Microsoft doing just about anything in it's power to undercut it's competition, (which does include Open Source Software these days) it is also potentially valuable to them in that so far the company has been able to escape taxes in a number of ways. This provides another way for them to write off proffits that they would otherwise have to claim when it came time to file State and Federal taxes.
Perhaps of more concern is the fact that by using these applications, charities are going to be locking themselves into a proprietary set of file formats that they may not later be able to extract information from without Microsoft's blessings.
Then again, that's just my opinion. I have been wrong before, it will probably happen again.
-Rusty
Tax deduction (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shut the fuck up. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:That makes no sense. (Score:2, Insightful)
I personally don't see how them giving it away for free is beneficial in any other way. However, as it is being given for free, the issue becomes how does an already free OS compete with the FUD that Microsoft offers when price is no longer a debate? Security comes to mind, but security has always lost out to a combination of usability (read: familiraity) and marketing power.
More than both (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Tax credit
2. Press (preferably good press)
3. Good will of the charities.
4. Make themselves feel like good giving citizens
5. AND keep Open Source from gaining mindshare
They win all the way around, and without costing them a dime. I mean really. Charities can't afford 200 dollar Operating Systems and 3 or 400 dollar Office Suites, let alone the people who know how to maintain it.
Which brings a potential 6th benefit for MS:
What if it crashes and these charites don't know how to reactivate it? Uh-oh, they might end up having to go out and BUY a new copy! Meaning more profit for Microsoft.
Re:I'm sure to be modded down... (Score:3, Insightful)
but it's a billion dollars that those companies didn't have to spend to buy software. therefore they are able to use the money for more urgent and important things.
and before anyone uses the excuse, "but they could of had it free all along", the learning curve (and training) between open source OSes and MS OSes is obviously night and day.
why retrain someone to use new software, when they may already be familiar with the software they have at home.
Mike
Re:of course it's tactics (Score:5, Insightful)
After being found guilty of illegally using their monopoly, they were told to pay a penalty that is less than 10% of what they made breaking the law. If the penalty for stealing $100 is paying a $10 fine, why on earth would you stop stealing $100?
Re:Deductions, baby! (Score:3, Insightful)
What you pay taxes for is: revenue - all costs
And retail value isn't a cost at all (the only thing that is, is the cost of the physical media). To "optimize" your taxation (ie. so that your shareholders's wealth after taxes grows as much as possible) you pay suitable amounts of dividends (cost of capital you know...) before taxes. What else you're allowed to deduct in taxation varies in different countries - iirc. at least in some states in the US you're allowed to deduct the interest rate on loans (I'm European but have read quite a few American books on finance too).
not even close to free (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Both (Score:2, Insightful)
i wonder what'll happen if/when MS becomes open source.
just like giving away non-lethal cigarettes (Score:3, Insightful)
Open Source Philanthropy (Score:2, Insightful)
Sigh ... (Score:3, Insightful)
You post your story on Slashdot, so why do you have to ask ?
Yes, everybody knows Microsoft is evil, wants to take over the world, and that Bill Gates wants to stick fireants in Linus' and RMS' underwears.
Yes, everybody hates Microsoft, that Windows users are all stupid, that Linuxers have discovered the Virtuous Path.
Yes we know that Microsoft pulls the SCO puppet strings, that they make evil deals with the MPAA and RIAA.
Yes, we know all that by now, Slashdot crew. Can we move along now ? why do we have to read the same Microsoft articles with world-domination overtones over and over again ?
Re: That makes no sense. (Score:5, Insightful)
> Did somebody forget to proofread this article before posting? That makes no sense - how in the fuck can you undercut a free product?
The point is that Microsoft can only maintain its monopoly in the for-pay sector if it maintains the illusion that it's the standard. This "offer" is exactly like the 90% discount for Munich: if word ever gets out that the free stuff is good enough for organizations, Microsoft is fuxored.
They aren't any more worried about loss of revenue in this market than they are about loss of revenues from Munich. They're worried about a paradigm shift in the way the world acquires its software.
Re:Come on! (Score:2, Insightful)
If MS, instead of giving "a billion dollars" of MS software to these nonprofits, gave them an actual billion dollars (string-free), and let them do with it what they want (which might include spending it on MS software, or might include buying a billion dollars worth of hardware, and running free software on it), then Id be impressed.
And yes, getting users 'used' to using MS software does tend to make it hard for them to choose anything else. Like someone else mentioned, the comparison to drug dealers giving out 'free samples' is apt.
Oh come on... (Score:4, Insightful)
As for wondering whether Microsoft is doing this for philanthropic reasons - the simple answer is "of course not". If I was a Microsoft shareholder, I would want to sack any Microsoft board of directors that used the company's resources for anything other than increasing the bottom-line.
Beware of Geeks Bearing Gifts?? (Score:3, Insightful)
At face value, the donation of expensive software to not-for-profit organisations is a good thing.
On reflection, however, this is how they destroyed Netscape - they gave away Internet Explorer free, as in beer (okay, TCO budgets aside).
Verdict? Too soon to say. Applaud the effort, monitor the effects.
Re:Shut the fuck up. (Score:1, Insightful)
bullshit! (Score:2, Insightful)
Giving away the money? What money? Microsoft is giving away copies of their software which cost them exactly $0 and serves to maintain their monopoly. There are practically no lost sales (non-profit organizations wouldn't be able to afford to pay for Microsoft's software anyway) and the monopoly effect (specifically, Microsoft's incompatible protocols and file formats) actually generates more sales out of the people who need to communicate with those non-profit organizations! Also, they may be able to get a huge tax writeoff by claiming the full retail cost of the giveaway software as business expense. (Any accountants on /. ? Please confirm.) So where is the philantropy?
This is really no different than the "punishment" Microsoft proposed to settle their antitrust suit: give away $1 billion worth of Microsoft's software to schools. Apple was very unimpressed with this proposition and said so to the judge. That was one of the reasons the deal fell through.
Re:I'm sure to be modded down... (Score:4, Insightful)
In reality, they're hurting the non-profits more than helping them. by accepting the 5 copies of XP (or whatever), the NPO is opening itself up to more liability (BSA thugs). In addition, by getting the NPO's hooked on the particular product, they will be more likely to purchase more products from MS in the future (not that other companies don't do that, it's just not entirely altruistic).
But what really upsets me is that the donations of software (all proprietary software, not just MS) to NPOs is like delivering a big can of trash to them. I don't say this because I'm biased against proprietary software, I say this because the software has no resale value for the NPO. If I donate something physical to a NPO and they have no use for it, they can at least sell it to someone else and get some money to help their cause. But they can't do that with donated software (or at least it's really hard). So if an NPO gets 5 copies of Windows XP, but doesn't have any use for them (maybe all their computers are too old), they now have 5 coasters, and MS can take $1000 in tax deductions.
If MS wants to give billions in cash to NPOs, that's great. A true example of good corporate citizenship. But if their donations are software that they can donate with very little cost, that's pretty deceptive. They should really claim their donations in resale value, not the manufacturer's suggested retail price.
Sorry, but I don't buy that... (Score:5, Insightful)
No doubt, this donated software has strings attached, just as similar Microsoft donation have had in the past. Only last year, on this very website, I remember reading about the company "donating" copies of Office to a charity in a poverty-ridden African nation on the condition that the same number of copies of Windows were bought to run it on.* And I can recall other examples before that one too.
Almost without exception, Microsoft's donations are targetted to meet Microsoft's long-term goals. A few licenses here, a few there buys Microsoft lots of positive PR ("hey, look at how nice we are to the little kiddies") but anyone who thinks that the company's motives are purely philanthropic is living in cloud-cockoo land.
Microsoft is a company that has billions in the bank. The amount of good it could do with even a fraction of that wealth is unimaginable. Calling the giving away of its own software charity is a joke. Using some of its significant cash reserves to wipe out a large chunk of Third-World debt - now that would be real charity.
(*It seemed to be oblivious to the relevant marketing/public affairs people at Microsoft that a cash-strapped charity in a Third-World country didn't have the kind of resources to afford one copy of Windows to install on the recycled machines that it had luckily procured, let alone ten or twenty. Sometimes, people who think nothing of paying $2 for a cup of coffee seem to be really thick when it comes to visualising how the other half lives.)
Good Luck MS (Score:2, Insightful)
The thing I myself am advocating for is moving forward to Linux Terminal Server. I envision large scale and low cost in hardware as well as software. Less headaches because you maintain one installation and a bunch of thin clients and more importantly no increase in tech staff needed (cause the state and federal 'powers that be' are clipping program 'administration' costs across the board.)
Re:Explain to me again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because at $0, a familiar OS and applications readily that doesn't require Unix expertise might beat having to figure out why devfs isn't finding my fucking IDE Zip drive, while at $1200 for Windows, Office and utilities, cursing devfsd.conf seems more cost-effective.
I suppose technically that might not be "undercutting" but that's getting into hairsplitting.
Re:Both (Score:1, Insightful)
That's because we've been payting attention. Microsoft plays hardball, and they do so better than anybody else. Or hand't you heard?
This is a pure PR move which just helps further extend the ubiquity of their software. If they really wanted to help non profits they could fork over a tiny fraction of their billions of real dollars and let the organizations themselves decide what to do with the money.
uhhm, no (Score:5, Insightful)
Uhhm, no they couldn't. They didn't have that billion dollars in the first place. This is the point the parent post was making but it obviously went right over your head. Non-profit orgs can't spend the money on software. Microsoft can't charge them for software. But giving away the software actually benefits Microsoft.
Ask the Namibia school system ... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an old ruse. Before Microsoft, IBM used similar "gifts" to both tie schools into IBM hardware and make them pay for upgrades that the schools wouldn't have bought otherwise.
It's called "marketing".
Keeping the competition out is just part of it. Giving away freebies that require the mark to then buy something even more expensive is an old technique that long predates the existence of computers. When you buy a cheap laser or bubble-jet printer that then requires expensive ink cartridges every month, you are falling for the same tactic.
Re:Both (Score:4, Insightful)
And it isn't like they are giving away $1 billion in cash. They are giving away the worth of the costs of CDs enough to store software worth $1 billion.
The second thought that pops into my head - will the upgrades be given away too?
It would be wrong for them to be "purely" generous (Score:2, Insightful)
If, as some seem to think, they even had the option of being "purely" philanthropic, as in doing something that had absolutely no benefit for them, not even a bit of good PR, doing so would violate their responsibilities to the shareholders.
Now, are there a few (many?) people employed at Microsoft who truly believe they have a good product line and are truly happy that the company is doing this? Heck yeah. But the motivation of the "company" is and must always be to satisfy shareholders.
Re:Tax writeoff. (Score:2, Insightful)
At first I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, then I realized that it was their own software they were giving away. Let's see them donate one billion dollars a year in canned soup to the nation's food banks, peanut butter to the nation's homeless shelters, or apple juice to the nation's schools. Not as easy, 'cuz it ain't their own product. So why a billion dollars a year in their non-software product? Like mice, keyboards, etc. Or have their employees spend a billion dollars worth of labor for Habitat for Humanity, etc? Even a ten for one matching contribution for their employees charitable donations?
But I don't think they are doing this to "undercut" Open Source Software. I think they are doing it just to look good in front of the unsuspecting public.
Let's pick our battles (Score:5, Insightful)
Do I doubt the motives of their largesse? Not really... they're pretty clear. But what are we trying to accomplish, here? In criticizing this, the (free|open source) software world simply looks bad.
Generally, society tends to be happy enough when charitable contributions are made; scrutinizing the donors for their motives is just puritannical. If non-profits benefit, according to their own definition of 'benefit', that's good. Complaining about it allows writers to lead articles with lines like "Even when the Microsoft Corporation attempts to do good, its critics distrust its motives," and discount open source people as too partisan to be taken seriously. "Michelle Murrain, a member of the Nonprofit Open Source Initiative in Amherst, Mass., says that if Microsoft gives away Windows for a few years, nonprofit groups may be less likely to use free, open-source software." Great. We're complaining about charity because it doesn't benefit us.
On top of which, none of the arguments put forth are particularly convincing. Murrain says, "Microsoft could throw in all this software for the next two years and then just stop and people will be hooked." Hooked. Okay. As if none of these people had used Windows before. Or as if companies with tight budgets will, in two years' time, be willing to cough up more than they are now, because they've become hopeless Microsoft junkies in the interim.
And Michael Gilbert says, "As a monopoly, Microsoft's below-market-price distribution of software might very well be a form of illegal competition for a particular market." Presumably he's indulging in a bit of theoretical speculation, and doesn't really lack the sense to foresee such a legal claim promptly going down in a ball of flames.
Sometimes it seems that open source people aren't satisfied with the prospect of beating Microsoft... they're offended that Microsoft isn't willing to simply roll over and die. Or at least to provide a stationary target. Better to pick our battles, and keep the focus on all the good software being developed except when there's really something to complain about.
i know a lot about all of this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That makes no sense. (Score:3, Insightful)
An organisation makes a substantial investment into IT above and beyond the cost of purchasing software. People get skilled up, you go and get other software to interact with the software you were given (especially if the software you were given was an OS), and you generally build up an infrastructure, which makes you dependant on the underlying pieces.
In this scenario, MS can, two or three years down the track, reduce their level of charity, which means that only some of the charities will get upgrades (or even be permitted to keep the licenses they were "given" earlier). If you're one of the charities that's just had your license revoked, you've got three options:
Guess which one is going to be initially cheaper for the charity? And what's the bet it proves to be the more expensive in the longer term?
In the meantime, the free software companies, who have a revenue stream based of services, not sales, lose valuable reference customers, as well as possibly income (or at least tax dodges).
Here's a similar scenario: let's say you run a farm in a third-world country. All of the produce of the farm goes to feed the local community (it's a charity) Because you can't afford tractors, you have to use manual labour to run the farm, and this greatly limits the amount of food you can grow. General Motors comes along and says "Here's a bunch of tractors you can have. It's a five-year lease, it costs you nothing, all you have to do is sign on the bottom line". You think "Great! I can use the tractors, which means I don't have to go and buy that horse-drawn plough".
Five years go by. Your farm is running a lot better, and you're feeding not only your village, but three of the neighbouring villages as well. Then GM comes along and says "Okay, we'll have our tractors back now, please. Oh, if you want, you can buy some new ones, at retail". What do you do? You need tractors, after all; you can't run your farm without them anymore, and too many people depend on your farm.
Of course, in this scenario, you might be able to source tractors from someone else; tractors are all pretty similar, after all, and the cost to switch to a different type of tractor isn't high. Not the case with operating systems, and software in general.
Corporate Philanthropy ... definitive Oxymoron (Score:5, Insightful)
The value of a corporation's stock is determined by the demand for that stock (classic supply/demand relationship). This is accomplished by convincing investors that the stock has value (the perception of value is value). This is done by increasing net assets (i.e. improving the balance sheet), paying dividends, etc. etc. One way of doing it is to create the impresion that there is an intangible value in the company; i.e. provide a "return" to the community that some investors might consider valueable and worthy of their support. This explains how corporations can be philanthropic and still be acting in the best interests of the shareholders. (Ignoring the effects of good PR on sales, possible gov't regulation, and other market/operating environment considerations)
Absolutely everything that a corporation does is designed to increase the value of its stock. Anything else would be in violation of the duty of the officers of the company to its shareholders.
It is an error to think about corporations with the same "mental template" that you use to thing about people; they do not "think" in the same way; rather, corporations "think" more like simpler forms of life; almost like a program (really, like a program with the introduced factor of human error). A corporation being philanthropic is less like a person being philanthropic, more like those ants that keep and feed aphids for food.
Bottom line: Corporations give gifts, not out of concience, or goodwill, but from a perception of self benefit of some sort.
Some companies operate entirely to maximize the implicit derived from philanthropy, such as charities that are organized as corps, etc.
This is why corporations act without conscience. You think that environmentally friendly companies are so because they care about the environment? Yeah, right. They act that way for legal, PR, or other reasons (but they will sure as hell claim to care, for the very same reasons).
Granted, my attitude about corps is very, um, clinical (?); and granted, this holds true less for smaller companies, or, more correctly, companies that are controlled more by their own stockholders (i.e. the mom and pop shop where the shareholders are, in fact, the officers of the company), because in this situation, their duties are to themselves, so they can operate in a fashion that they deem to have the most value.
But I think you will find that the stark portrayal of companies is more accurate than most would like to believe when describing large, especially publicly traded companies.
My point is, given a proper understanding of how corporations operate; the question of "Are company A's actions philanthropy, or self-promoting" is really a question without meaning; It's like asking if the ocean is full of water, or is it full of dihydrogen oxide?"; the question arises from a misunderstanding of the definition of "philanthropy" in the context of corporate operations.
Re:of course it's tactics (Score:4, Insightful)
It's even worse than that. They're essentially getting to pay the $10 in gift certificates to be used to buy their own products, whose marginal cost is nearly nil. So in reality they're paying more like $.20 for the $100, in a way that amounts to an investment in their own future market share.
This whole fiasco is absolutely proving me right on this one - I've said all along that expecting the government to reign in microsoft was naïve at best. Fox, hen house...
Re:Corporate Philanthropy ... definitive Oxymoron (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps, however self-interest can be a pretty broad proposition that includes benefitting people other than the corporation in addition to the corporation itself. Examples include funding scholarships at universities that provide well-educated employees, hospitals in areas that the company operates which make that area more attractive to employees, and so on.
Re:More than both (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:More than both (Score:0, Insightful)
MS's idea of "philanthropy" is exactly equivalent to that of a drug pusher. Their intention is to get you hooked so they can bleed you dry and control you.
Just say No!
Re:Both (Score:5, Insightful)
the executives of microsoft have donated more REAL, physical dollars to various causes around the world then you ever will.
Look at the Gates foundation sometime. You are a nobody in the world of philanthropy, comparatively, regardless of what pseudo-intellectual way you want to measure it.
Who Cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, I'm no big fan of MS, but even if they give everything they make away for free for the next 10 years (which I believe they have the cash on hand to do...), I will not trade in my Linux box. I believe the Bazaar model will win, in time, not because it is cheaper, or trendy, but because it simply makes more sense.
But I'm not on a mission to force FS/OSS down everyone's throat, either. Face it, many of these non-profit groups don't have a geek on hand, and the "gift," strings attached or not, will help them do good for the community they support.
If you don't want to see your favorite charity using MS software, get active! Volunteer at their center to install and support their software. Don't sit on
And if, by some miracle, MS suddenly starts giving away all of their software for free, opens their file formats for all to use, cleans up their security, kills off their bugs, becomes a responsible member of society, and everybody's best friend in the software world, didn't we win after all?
what's the problem here? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sigh ... (Score:2, Insightful)
As for this story, where the hell is the relevance to MS trying to detsory open source? AFAIK these donations have been going on (and been increased annually) for a number of years, since Open Source as a serious commercial competitor was just a twinkle in developers eyes. Why claim that all of a sudden that this is out to destroy Open Source? Paranoia?
Why not treat the story as what it is? As a story about MS giving away more copies of it's software to boost it's image? Discuss it on that basis, rather than people trying to read what THEY wish to see into the story.
Are they being manipulative? I certainly believe so, but I also believe that many of these organisations have volunteers who use Windows at home, never used Linux and aren't necssarily very "trainable" with the resources at hand.
All in all, a cynical move that does actually help people, but NOT necessarily aimed at the destruction of Open Source, Free Speech or the American Way of Life etc..... Feel free to disagree, I'm sure lots of people will.
Re:Both (Score:3, Insightful)
However, this is not a matter of charity. This involves Microsoft. They will give away copies of thier software for much the same reason that they didn't try to stop people from pirating Microsoft products early on. They need to establish a strong presence in the market.
Don't fool yourself into thinking that just because its executive donate to charity Microsoft as a company won't play hardball when it needs to.
From a linux type. (Score:4, Insightful)
And I encourage people to use Linux. And I think people should at least consider changing. But I recognize that Linux is not for everyone. Probably not my parents. Nor lots of other people. I do encourage organizations to use linux when possible. I think if users spent the time to learn another system it would be better for them - and probably much better for the organization as they'd have more options for the future.
Do I hate Microsoft and wish that they'd just go away? No. I dislike their OS's. I dislike their Office suite (to be fair, I don't like Open Office much either). But for most people MS may be the only viable alternative - because they've already bought in to MS, learned how to use Office and Outlook and IE and all - and they're unwilling to learn anything new.
But I also feel very uncomfortable indeed with the idea that MS has a stranglehold on software. I don't want to have to pay for a Windows OS with my computer that I don't want to use. I don't want to find myself stuck with a video card that Linux can't use because the only drivers are for Windows. I really dislike getting MS Word format email. I get very frustrated when there is software written for Windows and the Mac and only a second rate version for Linux (though more and more frequently the Linux version is better than the others). I think the "update office every year" marketing ploy is pretty sleazy (and very clever). I get quite annoyed at the web pages that work on IE only. I've heard personally from people whose companies were destroyed by MS's corporate slash and burn strategies. And so on. And the assumption that "All the world's running Windows" helps to create just those situations.
So, yes. I admit it. Over the years I've developed a dislike of MS which has become fairly intense. And lots of linux people I know have come to feel the same way for much the same reasons. And I've also come to find that most seriously pro-MS people have a stake in MS of one sort or another. Whats yours?
Now - to respond to your comments :
company doesn't have to choose to use microsoft products
Not true in most cases. Most of the time companies have already purchased computers with Windows and Office installed and hired some MSCE types to run them. Changing systems would piss off the MSCE guys big time so they'll resist like hell. It would scare most of the users so they'll resist like hell. Microsoft will resist like hell. The organization will have to worry about changeover costs. If you say they don't have to choose MS, you demonstrate just a bit of ignorance. The pressures to use MS are immense - almost to the point where there is no viable choice.
MS is easy to use
Completely untrue. (I hope I'm not quoting out of context - but I'm not sure what the context was - your sentence got a bit confused there.) With the possible exception of the Mac, most computer systems are difficult to use and to learn. But all the users are taught MS by default (because MS has an effective monopoly on end user computer software), so users think its easy. They only remember enough of the learning process to know they don't want to do it again.
Question (Score:3, Insightful)
If the non-profits agree... (Score:2, Insightful)
Is the fact that competion generally reduces prices "good" this week or "bad"? How about choice? Good or no?
Re:bullshit! (Score:5, Insightful)
So by donating to these people, Microsoft isn't losing any sales- they were going to lose the sales regardless.
And in exchange, they gain a slowdown of adoption of alternatives.
Back the animal into a corner.. (Score:1, Insightful)
The open source movement should spend some time thinking about what sorts of ruthless and nasty things msft might do in the future and try and plan accordingly.
The story's main points were all of M$ origin. (Score:3, Insightful)
Any user of a current GNU/Linux distro knows that Microsoft software is lacking. Everyone needs to store, manipulate and exchange information. Microsoft formats and tools get in the way of all three needs by ignoring published standards and best practices. No one needs Microsoft tools except people who use Microsoft tools. Free software offers a tremendous selection of tools that do all of the above without crashing, with ease and platform independence.
The bigger picture story that John missed is a history of dumping software to defeat competition and then gouging the victims. Microsoft has pushed it's software on influential groups forever. Each "market" has been tiny, but the cumulative effect has been much larger. Witness past efforts to woo business students and the effect on corporate america. Now that they are hooked, here comes License 6. Microsoft is constanly "giving away" software to public shcools and at universities to keep the learning curve up. Yet the BSA has extorted hundreds of thousands of dollars from those same schools. He saw the Apple complaint but was unable to place it in it's propper perspective.
M$ has made it difficult to own a computer without their software on it. By vendor manipulation, you STILL can't buy a computer from a "mainstream" vendor without the latest and greatest M$ junk on it. Because free software answers all sofware needs at a lower price, this directly contradicts normal market forces. Microsoft has tried to make it hard to build a PC yourself and take advantage of the cost differential. John should look up. Microsoft's "Naked PC" campaign. He might also investigate the Microsoft Server market and think hard about the implications of IE only services for banks, government and professional offices. With that kind of perspecitve he can examine this new round of charity give aways.
Microsoft is trying to insure that those who ordinarilly can't afford a computer will get one with a M$ OS on it and may have ambitions for state sponsorship. The market is huge. Computers are becoming a necessity, and about half of the US does not have one in their home. Think what this means to efforts to eradicate the "digital devide". First come private charities, then come public, tax payer funded ones. The influential market now are are charities and governement offices. It's not new. Remember the US post office adverts for M$ that occured before the anti-trust suit was settled? Most government offices run M$, except a very few bright ones, in effect this is a government subsidy. The new potential market is going to see Microsoft and be influenced by people Microsoft is doing it's best to treat well. With enough encouragment and Astroturfing, the public might ask for M$ junk as part of the social safety net. It's perposterous when free software is available at no cost.
Those that take the bait will be punished in the end. If the public school model is followed, we can expect the BSA will visit tomorrow those who trusted Microsft today. They have already had a talk with the United Way [uwnyc.org]. All of us will pay if M$ makes themselves the standard welfare computer.
John, get in touch with your local Linux User Group [balug.org]. Chances are they will set you up and be very happy to chat with you. You would be amazed at
Re:Let's pick our battles (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't tell if you're being synical or just naive. Companies are successfully sued for underselling products all the time. Anti-trust is based on the idea that you can use your monopoly power to enter into new markets. Namely, if you have a monopoly in the business office-software, and you don't in non-profit or educational sectors, but there are pre-existing competition in those markets, then you undersell your product (using your excess profits from other markets) to stamp out competition. Thereafter raising prices back up; once the barrier-to-entry is high enough. This is anti-trust clear and simple.
Pre-speculating that they will raise prices again may or may not win in a court of law, but it hardly takes clearvoyance to see this pattern in previous MS activities.
Moreoever, MS is already in declared violation of anti-trust. It would not be very hard to legally apply pressure in this case.
It is illegal to selectively sell products at different prices. MS was found guilty of various unfair contracts on massive scales to PC vendors for licences. There are bizzar cases where the government turns a blind eye towards favoritism - namely senior discounts, educational / non-profit / foreign purposes. Basically the US government turns a blind eye when it suites themselves.
The issue, however, is that MS is internally being given cart blanche negotiating power to sell to whomever they can at whatever level they can. This is stright favoritism transactionalism. And while we see this in many markets (auto sales, etc), for some reason it's illegal in super-markets and department stores, and thus I speculate that MS is in violation. IANAL, so please somebody enlighten me if there is somehow a method to this madness.
Re:More than both (Score:2, Insightful)
You failed to note that Microsoft gives these organizations activation free copies of Windows. Windows XP Home and Pro for the consumer masses have activation to thwart petty piracy.
Other than that, all the rest of your points are on the right track.
Free Linux != Free Windows (Score:2, Insightful)
If you don't agree with this then you're a real Linux zealot, or you just have no clue how actual non-technical users think and work with computers. Don't feel bad, I've fallen into the same fantasy several times. But every time I set a real user down in front of a Linux machine, I realize yet again that Linux has a long way to go. You cannot, I say again, you CANNOT find a Linux distro to this day that is truly the equivalent to Windows in terms of making your computer easy to work with. (The closest is probably Xandros, with its proprietary file manager.)
I can think of a lot of examples but one of the biggest ones in my mind is the fact that Linux makes it so damn complicated to work with all the different drives attached to your system. In Windows, if you attach an external Firewire or USB storage device, or anything else for that matter, it will first be installed and from then on it will automagically appear in the file manager. I have yet to find the equivalent behaviour in any Linux program or desktop environment.
Oh, and you'd like to eject a disk? Sorry, as long as a single obscure, hidden application or daemon is still messing with that drive, you can't unmount it (a totally foreign concept to most people) and thus you can't eject it. Supermount? I'm sorry, but supermount is still a total pain in the ass. I'm using Mandrake 9.1 and I have once again disabled supermount in favor of regular mount options. It just doesn't work the way a human needs it to work. It doesn't even approach the ease with which you can eject a disk in any Windows environment. Yes, I know it's unsafe, but it's EASY, and that's what non-techies care about.
I could fill a book with other usability problems with Linux and its various desktop environments. It's not just the fact that people have used Windows for years. Windows really is still easier to use in so many ways. That doesn't even bring in the application and device compatibility issues.
Last but not least, non-techies either don't know about, or don't care about, the hole they will be digging themselves into by accepting and using proprietary software to create all their documents, thus practically chaining themselves to the Beast from Redmond. They just don't care. They have actual lives and actual work to do, and they don't feel that any of this is important, if they're even aware of it at all.
All this adds up to exactly why "Free Windows" can definitely undercut "Free Linux". Because it's not just about the numbers on the price tag.
Re:Explain to me again... (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem with this logic is that that is only 1 XP license so its only good for one PC and AFAIK you can install that copy or red hat on as many computers as you would like, . You could also download the red hat ISO's from somewhere or use a different distro where as there is only one windows XP (3 flavors but just 1)
The point of this whole thing is that Microsoft may be trying to force these nonprofits to use their software rather than open source by giving it away, sure there are free open source distros and distros that cost money, but free microsoft HEY! sounds great until you stop to think about hidden costs such as support and upgrades
Re:Corporate Philanthropy ... definitive Oxymoron (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporations are designed to do one thing, and one thing only: to increase the value of its stock.
Yes, but this viewpoint is oversimplified and rather... academic. It's true that corporations are all about increasing shareholder value, but what's not clear is exactly what actions do and do not further this aim. Some clearly do and some clearly don't, but there are huge gray areas, and this is where corporate culture comes into play.
A corporation's culture shapes all the decisions of its management and plays a particularly important role in making decisions in which benefit is less that perfectly clear, or in which the benefit is clear, but hard to measure and weigh against cost. For example, some companies have as a part of their culture the notion that it is important and, in the long run, valuable to be a "good corporate citizen." The idea is plain enough: By acting in a variety of ways to strengthen and support the society of which the corporation is a part, the corporation benefits, both in terms of goodwill directed towards it in particular and in terms of how the success of the society will reflect back on the corporations which inhabits it.
The example nearest to me is my current employer: IBM. Now, IBM is by no means a paragon of virtue, but it had this ideal of corporate citizenship placed into its culture by the elder Watson. As a result, IBM has and has always had charitable programs whose benefit to the company is less than perfectly clear. One example I've had personal involvement in was the program to donate IBM computer hardware to non-profits. There are some clear benefits to IBM:
What's not so clear at all is whether these benefits are valuable enough to justify the cost. After all, unlike Microsoft, who is out nothing more than the cost of pressing some CDs and, perhaps, printing some manuals, IBM's donation has a significant per-unit manufacturing cost.
Another example is IBM's habit of making sure that the board of directors of every major charitable institution in a city where IBM has a significant presence contains an IBM employee (generally a high-ranking executive). While these "extra-curricular" activities are not technically part of the job description, it's well-understood that execs are expected to participate in the "good citizenship" and it's reasonable to think that such "personal" choices will have an effect on future promotions. In addition, it is expected that these activities will occasionally take time during and away from business. Further, it's clear that any time spent on charitable work is time *not* spent on increasing IBM's bottom line (well, sort of, there's the fact that lots of other corps do the same thing, so board meetings are also a chance to hobnob with potention vendors/customers).
The point here is that there are lots of corporations, particularly "old-school" corporations, that have this sort of culture, and it leads to decisions about what "increases shareholder value" which are not, in fact, wholly based on dollar-based cost-benefit analyses.
I'm not really qualified to comment on what Microsoft's culture is like, on whether it's the sort of company that really considers such intangible benefits as "goodwill" and "betterment of society" but, since this *is* slashdot, I will anyway.
My perception is that Microsoft's culture is one of maximum competitiveness at all cost, without any regard for quaint notions of "citizensh
Re:Both (Score:4, Insightful)
What complete bullshit. Did you miss Econ 101? The product is only worth a billion dollars if you're giving it away for free *to organizations which would've purchased it anyway*. As the targeted organizations don't have the budget to pay for the software on the market, the actual cost of the operation is whatever it takes to stamp and ship the CDs.
This is *not* a billion dollars of software. That's just PR for idiots who can't do the math.
Max
Re:I'm sure to be modded down... (Score:1, Insightful)
This is pure myth. MS zealots always like to say this because it was once true. It is obvious that you have not used Linux recently. Mandrake + KDE = easier, prettier, and shinier than anything Microsoft could ever come up with. URPMI to get anything you need right off the net. It is simply not any easier than that. The sad fact is that just being different in itself is enough to scare most people but it's not because MS is any easier or better, just more familiar. It's time to stop propogating myths about the useability of Linux.
For example just the other day on slashdot someone complained that they don't want to teach their grandmother how to compile a kernel just so she could use email. I was simply amazed. I think if these people would just take a step back, actually try linux, and keep an open mind they might like it.
So if you haven't used Linux since before the 2.4 kernel then you cannot comment on these subjects. The truth is that it is quite useable right now and anyone can set up an rpm distro without a hitch.