Big Company on Campus 677
Daniel Dvorkin writes "MSNBC (oh, the irony) is running a scary article entitled Microsoft's big role on campus, detailing how Microsoft is working its way into academic computer science through a combination of bribery and propaganda. The aricle may be overstating the case, but it does make it sound as though MS products are displacing others at a disturbing rate in computer science departments. Given that academic computing has traditionally been both the source of and the stronghold for innovative software, this is a disturbing long-term trend."
This makes me angry (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This makes me angry (Score:5, Funny)
Post the URL.
Re:Good for us all (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good for us all (Score:3, Funny)
How many of those books were written by faculty members?
If memory serves, most of my text books were written by faculty members somewhere. Just a thought.
wow (Score:5, Funny)
If I'd known professors were that cheap, I'd have picked up a couple a long time ago.
Re:wow (Score:5, Insightful)
A nice $150,000 donation pretty much takes care of a year's grant/donation hunting. I'll bet MS would even though in a new t-shirt for the ride home.
Re:wow (Score:5, Interesting)
Textbook sales are another good example of the professor and business. When the prefessor, or department, can dictate the purchase of thousands of dollars in books, you can be certain that there is a great deal of schmoozing going along with the sale. If you want your $100 a pop textbook to be accepted by a major university, you better be prepared to roll out a red carpet for the decision makers.
You mean I'm supposed to schmooze? (Score:4, Funny)
But, Long term (Score:3, Insightful)
You would think University professors would think a bit more about the big picture
Never mind I take that back, having known a few, I can see how this might work......
I remember when.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I remember when.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed, you're actually paying several times ($1000-2000?) what you would ordinarily be paying.
Microsoft, of course, loves this. You (myself included!) feel like you're not getting your money's worth if you don't go down and stock up on software you're already paying for. On top of that, you're spamming friends and relatives with the latest versions of MS Office, Windows Media Player, and requesting software for their latest version. You're becoming a vital cog in their upgrade treadmill and are more effectively advertising Microsoft than their marketing department could(!), and you're paying for the privilege of helping Microsoft!
Re:I remember when.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I remember when.. (Score:5, Interesting)
If memory serves, the cost for each student was something like $50 per semester, or $5 per credit hour or something like that. This is in addition to the $5 per CD, so if you want WinXP it's $5 for the CD, VS.NET was $25 for the 5 CD's. Financially, it works out best for people about to graduate.
And at A&M the students voted it in. There was a referendum and everything. To put it in perspective, say it was a $5 per credit hour increase - we had just passed a $30 per credit hour fee increase and people raised bloody hell. I was even in charge of writing the code to select all the students "grandfathered" against that fee when they decided only to hand it to incoming freshmen and certian other students with this bizarre algorithm.
But at a major university, you've got to remember who's paying. Many of the kids are there on their parents' nickel, and they see anything on the bill as something they won't have to see or mess with. It's kinda the same mentality of paying for something with a credit card - anything that's not out of pocket is seen as "free" (no surprise then that credit card companies often target college students).
No, it's only the students that either have restrictive scholarships or are paying for everything themselves through financial aid or out of pocket that raise issues - and they're voted down by the majority of the students. Ultimately it boils down to college being expensive in any event.
But on the other side of the coin, to some degree we all know piracy is rampant on college campuses, and students instinct is not to go to free (as in GPL) software. Your parents buy you a Dell but it has XP Home and you need XP Pro to join a domain. No problem, find the guy with the XP Pro Corporate God edition to upgrade your system. Get Office XP Pro and VS.NET while you're at it (even though you're an English major and will never need VS.NET ever). Now Microsoft is offering you the opportunity to not be a dirty pirate for the low price of $5 a CD and some fees you'll never see because the bill goes to your folks.
So let's say you take 15 hours a semester - two semesters times $5 per credit hour is $150, plus a one-time $5 per CD fee. VS.NET alone is over a thousand dollars (though in all fairness not everyone needs it). By your numbers, you would have to be in college for over ten years to rack up $2000 in these MS fees.
Re:I remember when.. (Score:3, Funny)
Used to be Macs (Score:2, Informative)
Apple has targeted the education market for literally decades (IIe, the LC520, etc. etc.) What makes this news?
Re:Used to be Macs (Score:3, Interesting)
Then he looked at the kid and asked, complet
Hook 'em while they're young (Score:5, Funny)
It works for the U.S. tobacco companies, so why not?
Re:Hook 'em while they're young (Score:5, Funny)
It works for the U.S. tobacco companies, so why not?
At least the tobacco companies products work.
Sounds the same to me (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know, I'd say M$ware works at least as well as tobacco. Both give decent results in the short term, but eventually result in a fatal process crash. And hey, at least you can reboot your computer. I suppose if you're Hindu you believe you can reboot yourself, as well.
Re:Sounds the same to me (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hook 'em while they're young (Score:3, Interesting)
Where are the open source advo
In Other News (Score:3, Funny)
Re:In Other News (Score:3, Insightful)
A common practice in the journalism industry.
Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
Computer Science isnt "how to use your computer". The concepts and techniques you learn are beyond any operating system. Good algorithm design and analysis transcends linux vs windows vs mac osx.
When I did my degree, half the classes used Windows, the other half linux, and now, a few years later, I really cant remember which was which.
It was irrelevant, I wasnt learning computers, or even how to program in C, I was learning concepts.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's less money the students have to pay, that's less they have to pay back later, and that's more excellent programs and hardware they have to work with.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
And look at this way... Every dollar MS gives to schools is a dollar they don't have to give to SCO!
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
Less binge drinking should clear than problem up
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
The issue is that most people are not taught concepts but rather tools. It's here that MS is buying it's future.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft is well aware that controlling education (especially higher eduation) will give the a huge leg up in the future. I'm not sure that if I were in charge of a CS dept. and was offered a large grant even knowing all this I would turn it down, but there is a downside.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
Also, many of the people doing open source work started (and continue) because of their exposure to Windows.
;-)
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
I teach computer science. No longer can I teach with Borland (or gcc) and Linux. Everything is pretty much Microsoft-only. Everything must be VS 6 (and
I guess University of Maryland is really University of Microsoft.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Interesting)
I had played around with Linux a bit in high school, but for the most part held on to Windows pretty closely. CSC 150 and 250 both used Windows and Visual Studio as a programming environment. When Data Structures came around, and programs were supposed to be written for Linux, I found myself dreading giving up my click-to-comil
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
You can still compile from a makefile on the command line with a million and one
IMO, Visual Studio's MSFT's best product by far. I'd love to see something equivalent come out for OSS, it'd draw in a ton of developers like me who have a desire to contribute and love to code, but just dont see why they should spend their spare time being annoyed with trivial shit.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've done countless things in Visual Studio where I had no idea all the compiler switches that were being used. In some cases, this created some problems.
In Linux however, I am forced to read all about the switches to get things done. When I need to do something, I read the man page to find the switch I need. I also tend to read about at least 5 other switches in the process. I know what's going on when I compile with gcc, but I'm not real sure about Visual Studio.
Re:Stupid question (Score:3, Interesting)
Also there are a million template/macro/etc bundles out there to use for dozens of languages and it's easy to make your own in arch independent elisp.
Does MSVC++ generate Singleton classes for you in C++ given a class name and a click? Yeah, MSVC++ is pretty crippling after having a truely open development system.
Btw, if you screw around with any of my cheap templates send me
In a perfect world (Score:5, Insightful)
Dictators do similar things to the minds of the youth.
Re:In a perfect world (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, there is. You have to have marketshare to get money, and you have to have money to give away money. Most of the tech sector is in no condition to be throwing around money on things they won't see returns for in the near future, since they would likely not have a future! The only one really making enough money to do this is Microsoft, and Microsoft monopoly and continued monopolization of old and new markets via means such as this is what's keeping competitors from doing the same.
Hmm. Now that I think about it, the Linux ones do. You can get Red Hat or SuSE or Mandrake or OpenBSD or NetBSD for free. Look at it as a campus licensing agreement that people don't seem to know or care about.
As a case in point, I've offered several times to give out copies of Linux to the bookstore for people to get. No go. They don't even want to get the free CDs to give out.
So, yes. Microsoft's monopoly is what is keeping competitors back.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, I'm a freshman at a school where a "MS products only" policy is enforced. Students are required to have a laptop. Only windows is supported by the school technical staff. This is not a big deal; sadly, I don't expect more because, even though my school portrays itself as up and coming in the technical education department, most of their graduates couldn't diagnose a bad port on a switch.
To print on campus, you must use a printing program (for payment purposes) that is windows only. Buy vmware or virtualpc or you can't print on campus. Considering I live an hour away from school, this is more than a little inconvenient.
Teachers only accept emailed documents in word format. I understand most teachers won't be able to open a
The software required for ALL math courses is Mathsoft's Mathcad. This is also windows only. Calc II seems like it might be possible to survive without the software, but the labs in Calc I make it absolutly necessary for that and most lower courses. With all the cross-platform products available, why do they use this one?
My complaints fall on deaf ears, and I have no doubts (and also no proof) that my school has sold out to Gates and Co. Any school purporting to educate in the technical fields should be totally open to encouraging the learning of alternate platforms.
PS. They don't teach standard HTML either from what I hear. Fortunately, I'm a CompE major about to transfer so I don't have to continue to suffer, but, damn, everyone should teach standard HTML. http://www.clayton.edu/
Ethics are ethics (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Right. So Mr. Windows-Schooled sits down at his brand new job at Unixwerks, and goes to open up Visual C++, and... err... well... opens up pico and flounders around looking for the button to press to bring up the dialog editor.
Or more likely, he'll have skipped Unixwerks in the phone book and fired his resume straight off to WindowsRUs.
Personally, I don't care. If microsoft wants to flood the already saturated job market with even more Windows-Only people, it makes it easier for me to sell my Unix programming skills, at least until the Windows-Only people are so numerous that there are no more Unix jobs, everyone's switched to windows shops to take advantage of the dime-a-dozen nature of the programmers.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
Shhh dont let out the secrets....
it is even in the IT world. they let go 13 of the 15 IT staff last month.. 2 windows guys and Me, the ONLY linux guy are left. the 2 windows guys had some linux exposure and experience because of me.
Linux was the reason we kept our jobs here....
It's nice to be the wierd geek with that crazy hippie OS 3 years ago to the guy who still has his job because of it today....
thanks microsoft.
A Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
A kid who learned on the Visual C++ IDE and nothing else and who has been thrown into a unix environment is going to freak. Why? Because even if he was only taught how to program ANSI C++ and could pick up a new language in his sleep, he still is not prepared to use the tools required to compile those languages.
Things like makefiles, gcc, VisualAge, etc. From experience its a hell of a lot easier to go from a command
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Interesting)
We all programmed in Pascal, and I think we're all the better for it. Not that I use *any* of the above anymore - if you think what you learn at University today is all you'll need you are very much mistaken, and will probably be programming Java as it becomes more and more legacy in the face of future developments.
Take my advice - go learn and use all the different systems available to you - yes, even Windows - as then, and only then, will you be able to see just how everything works, without being blinded by only one side of the 'argument'.
Need an example? Ask whether a microkernel is a good or a bad thing, think of applying that knowledge to application design.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Funny)
If your choices are "use J++ for the Java courses" or double tuition for Comp Sci students, I say go with J++.
Okay, and Java would be more expensive because it's free (as in free beer, which all students will be able to evaluate correctly)?
Business should not be allowed... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is unethical on so many levels.
Re:Business should not be allowed... (Score:5, Informative)
My aren't WE large headed!! This does not just happen across the pond there, it happens in Europe too. In fact, MS has offered academic institution(s) here in Ireland _really_ cheap setups in the past, and there were 2 reasons.
o To lock them in (obviously)
o To test out NT in a large network enviornment
And boy was NT tested (some of the curses thrown at it were impressive. It caused an awful lot of hassle, never mind that the default setup allowed students to format the harddrive)
Now, the Computer Systems degree I'm doing in the University of Limerick [www.ul.ie], Ireland use a mix of Red Hat and Windows, and I believe that the Computer and Electrical Engineers use the same mix, but aside from that, the rest of the college use Win2k workstations with Active Directory and Exchange Server, which was a direct upgrade from the previous infrastructure... so I guess the lock-in worked
that as it may be on a purchasing level... (Score:2, Interesting)
Many large colleges have UNIX clusters of some fo
Re:that as it may be on a purchasing level... (Score:3, Informative)
My only gripe at that level is the new MS only MS based student information system. If you want to fully interact with it, you need to be running Windows/IE/Office. No lie! cosmos.arizona.edu.
My Biggest Fear (Score:5, Funny)
I come home from work and my kid comes running up to be dressed like the MSN butterfly and says "Where do you want to go today." (in a robotic like tone)
Brainwashing I tell ya!!
Visa Commercial (Score:3, Insightful)
Flaming Linux: 0, Flamebait
Unbiased moderation on Slashdot:
There are somethings money can't buy, and others that will simply never happen.
Re:Visa Commercial (Score:3, Funny)
Microsoft Fetish (Score:5, Funny)
--
hecubas
they give it out like candy (Score:2, Informative)
ObSimp: (Score:4, Funny)
Oh wait! No, I don't!
Not surprising (Score:2)
MSNBC (Score:2)
Why are people surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
The scary thing is, some kids are now being taught things like PowerPoint in middle school....
I got to UTDallas (Score:2, Informative)
MS on Egyptian campuses (Score:5, Interesting)
That is, of course, breathtakingly shocking. But then, it is common knowledge that the IT ministry is in cahoots with MS.
Offtopic, but is 'campuses' the right plural for campus, or would that be campii, or something?
Re:MS has Egyptian curses??? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:MS on Egyptian campuses (Score:5, Funny)
Or perhaps it would make me look like a non-native english speaker? (which is the case)
OH well, don't let me ruin a perfectly good jump to a conclusion.
At UW (Score:5, Informative)
Re:At UW (Score:4, Insightful)
Good choices include:
Smalltalk: Everything is an object
Eiffel: Everything at least pretends to be an object, but overloading is
Python: Everything is an object, but it might not look like it. A bit too much magic.
Ruby: I like Ruby. I can't be objective.
Ada95: You need to understand objects to do OO programming in Ada, but if you do you really can
and Lisp: Well, this is mainly here because everyone should be exposed to Lisp, but you can do OO programming in Lisp. Inheritance is quite interesting.
I don't know objective C, it might be a good choice, or maybe not. C++ has too many special cases and complex rules. (Ada is a bit that way, it's a more "advanced" language than most of the others. But at least it's well designed and not full of exceptional cases.)
Another good choice would be C. Plain old vanilla C. (Look at the Gnome project, and see how they did object oriented stuff in C. They seem to have it all.)
The point of a course in computer science is that you are supposed to come out of it understanding how things work. With the *.NET stuff everything is hidden behind various curtains. Bad idea. Perhaps good for development, though I doubt it, but definitely a bad choice for an academic CS program. And Java isn't that much better.
In perspective (Score:4, Interesting)
(Damn, the phone rang. I could have had first post on a red-meat Micro$oft story!)
Re:In perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
Sad.
Heh, not at my university (Score:3, Informative)
And yes, I realize most of you
Re:Heh, not at my university (Score:5, Funny)
yep, they're looking for graduates that can probram VB in India.
Simple solution (Score:3, Funny)
Effigies made up to look like they've suffered the Death of a Thousand Cuts, only using sharpened slivers of Linux distribution CD-ROMs.
Also, encouraging grad students working in the IT offices to wear pirate costumes might help, Arrrr!
Good Thing (Score:5, Funny)
happened to me. (Score:5, Interesting)
the announcement my professor made show'ed she wasnt terribly happy with this. In addition every student in the class recieved a copy of windows NT professional and Visual Studio. This really stank for me, as a linux user, it meant that I had to work in the computer labs on campus.
In addition to the cut throat competition style bribes to the students, they also gave the computer department thousands and thousands of dollars that year. of course, one third of the sun machines were then replaced with dells...
the article is not over-reacting. How can we stop this? I think universities are lured by money, but are even more scared of losing cred. We as a developer community should loudly and publicly question the academic virtue of schools who whore themselves and their students out like this.
Guess who bought MIT a new comp sci building...? (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't feel like paying an employee? Pay a school and get students to do it instead!
Needless to say, I'm bitter about "Microsoft presents 'College Education.'"
Um, not exactly. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. He paid for a part of the building. The building in question is the Stata Center [mit.edu], named for Ray and Maria Stata. Ray Stata is an MIT alum who founded Analog Devices, and he's the one shelling out much of the dough. Gates only paid for one tower of the building (cheapskate), so that's all he gets. No one calls it the Gates building - it's called the Stata Center. Or, alternatively "that pile of iron on Vassar street", since it's designed by "renowned" "architect" Fran Gehry, which means it looks like it was a very nice building that got hit by an earthquake...
Re:Um, not exactly. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm all for new buildings, and I couldn't care less who actually funds them. However, Microsoft has and will continue to influence t
They're good at it, but others help their demise (Score:3, Interesting)
So I walk down to the bookstore. I can get a Blue Box OS/2 3.0 CD for $199. The C compiler was some outrageous expense- ~$500 if I remember. Everything else was a fortune: the sysadmin ran a beautiful editor (forget the name) that was ~$300/copy.
Sitting next to this was a copy of VisualC++. $99 In the box as extras were full copies of J++ and NT4.0. It also ran some nice chemistry visualization stuff that OS/2 wouldn't. For that price, why not give it a try? So I started running NT4. (Linux was out: too new and didn't run a fraction of the software I needed.)
I can't have been the only one. Apple learned this lesson ages ago: stuff the schools and people will use your system for years to come.
Take the Money, but be Careful (Score:3, Interesting)
at a question-and-answer session between the academics and Gates, one professor asked the Microsoft founder about his views about the study of information technology, a part of computer science that emphasizes on how documents, spreadsheets and other data should be handled. What kinds of technologies should students majoring in this subject be taught?
Gates replied quickly and with a smile: "Microsoft Office."
Yes, MSFT will try to benefit itself by attaching strings to money.
It is incumbent upon universities that call themselves places of learning, open-minded, bastions of science, to refuse money that comes attached with any strings.
If MS funds general research into CS, great.
If the money is contingent upon the university replacing standard infrastructure with MS proprietary infrastructure, the decision to change infrastructure should be made completely independent of the money.
Otherwise, it looks as if the univesity can be bought by the highest bidder.
I noticed it on campus (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, I noticed they switched from borland to visual C++ to teach programming courses during my stay at the college. Instead I went on to get a double major in German and International business and taught myself PERL, PHP, MySQL, Linux, FreeBSD, DNS/BIND. It was scary that I knew more about databases than the CIS majors in the database programming class. I would ask simple questions about joins and other things and get a blank stare in return. The instructor was teaching them how to use Access for 90% of their work and had about one chapter over MSSQL. Most didn't even know what SQL even was let alone why it may just be important to know in the business world. I mean every other database package, except for Access, can use "SELECT * FROM table_name". Is SQL that hard to learn if one understands the theory of programming? No, not really, but I had already learned enough to be dangous. Did I know all the absolute nitty, gritty details of what queries would run the fastest and all that, no, but neither did the CIS students.
With my International Business degree and German I ended up working for a great little start-up firm that now is making about $500k in revenue and growing and hold the title of VP/IT Director and trying to get Linux on more than just our webservers and suceeding and my pay is proably more than what most are making as jr. level coders.
One thing I did notice when I spent a semester in Germany was that the German fochhochschule had two computer labs, one with XP, the other SuSE Linux. People were becoming familar with both MS Office and Star/Open Office.
MS heavily subsidizing major publishers (Score:3, Interesting)
Institutional Reasons (Score:4, Interesting)
For example, our local community college requires that every student take a course entitled "Intro to Information Management Systems." This course, with such a lofty title, teaches students the following:
I asked the professor why they require everyone to take this stuff. The reason he gave is that they were asked to do so by the local business community (Chamber of Commerce and the like.)
You can blame Microsoft for infesting CS departments, but schools like to believe they provide a service to the community, and the community asks for Microsoft. Don't like it, send a letter to your local schools from your business asking them to use the tools your business uses in teaching their students.
Buying off students as well (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft [microsoft.com] has been buying off students as well as the universities and departments for a while now. Check out the MSDNAA [msdnaa.net] where Microsoft provides free development tools to certain educational institutions. At my university any student who takes at least one CS course is eligible. They may download ANY Microsoft operating system as well as any number of Microsoft development tools.
Also, within the past year Microsoft began selling [e-academy.com] their current desktop operating system and office suites to all students at significantly reduced prices - at $70 and below. Both of these methods of obtaining software will greatly increase the proliferation of Microsoft in academia.
All of this is discounting the huge amount of "pirated" software, particularly new versions of Microsoft operating systems and office suites, that are installed on students computers in college. A few students who know the tricks of the trade ("pirating") distribute copies to a huge amount of people on campus, especially since students hardly want to pay for music, let alone software.
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
Shame (Score:5, Insightful)
For instance, I never would have understood Operating Systems as well if we hadn't been using *nix systems; it made the difference between actually writing real code for class assignments and "pretending" to write code.
The next year after I finished my basic classes, the department began a transition from Linux/BSD/GCC to Windows/Java. Tutoring those kids, I noticed that they were having a hard time, and displayed a lot less interest. There's just something compelling about doing "real stuff" at a low-level, as opposed to working in a much higher-level environment.
Be consistent (Score:4, Insightful)
Taken to an extreme, one could argue about whether or not students ought to be taught on OS X, FreeBSD, Solaris, or Debian/RedHat/Mandrake - after all, they're all different to some extent. The question is, how much difference makes a material difference to the student ?
When someone makes a convincing argument that teaching kids on Windows software hurts them, that's when I'll kiss away the subsidies and grants that MS is giving away by the bushel.
Sounds about right (Score:3, Informative)
Interestingly enough, I was just reading some of Dijkstra's [utexas.edu] writings, where he comments on this very issue [utexas.edu] at UT.
and VAX/VMS was better? (Score:5, Interesting)
As much as they might like to, Microsoft can't control how we think about abstract problems. If you learn about linked lists using Visual C++, vi and gcc, or pascal and EDT, you are STILL learning about linked lists.
However, it DOES matter what you get exposed to while you're learning the concepts. At my university, programming classes were taught on a VAX/VMS cluster, and on Sun workstations. Learning to code on the Suns gave me skills I use today in my job, where I program under linux. Using the VMS cluster gave me nightmares that will take decades to fade.
I worked for a little while doing Visual BASIC programming, and it wasn't that bad. I tried to learn Visual C++ while I was there, and it stumped me. I know C++. I don't know how to effectively use the interface for that beast, nor all the API calls that I'd use if I coded with it every day. Had I been able to do some of that at university, I'd have a better chance in the Real World (TM).
What most slashdotters forget in their rabid anti-Microsoft raving, is the ancient quote "Know thine enemy". I'd much rather know how to use all the "evil" M$ products, so I can clearly make cases for and against them when the opportunity arises, than to just chant "They're EVIL!" and hope they go away.
Besides, creativity will find a way. If you don't think there are pretty clever windows programmers out there, you haven't looked very hard. And linux would NEVER have become this popular without the M$-Empire to make it stand out.
The reduction of objectivity (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree with you about the main point of what's learned in computer science. In my comp-sci degree, I also consider the abstract concepts that I learned as much more important than the day-to-day software that we were using to learn it. I disagree with your post as a whole, however, since
where i come from... (Score:4, Interesting)
Frankly this is brilliant marketing on Microsoft's part. When these students learn to program, they are now familiar and comfortable within VS. So what are they going to use later in life?
On the other hand, Microsoft is anything but pervasive in the CS labs. Probably about 50% of the machines have Windows only (but they all have Exceed on them also). About another 30% are Solaris, and the rest are Linux. Also, Microsoft products are free for engineering students, from Windows XP to BizTalk server. Even so, professors don't encourage Windows use--in fact most projects once you're out of the intro level are required to be done on UNIX or Linux.
I don't see this as as big a problem as it's being made out to be here. Windows will be shoved down everyone's throats no matter where they are. Smart people will still investigate all their options and made an educated decision.
--j
What this really means: (Score:4, Interesting)
How much is Microsoft really giving? (Score:4, Insightful)
How much of that $100 million is in the form of MS software, which is free for Microsoft to give away?
like a drug dealer (Score:4, Interesting)
This just happened here (Score:3, Informative)
It happened at UC Berkeley (Score:3, Informative)
At UC Berkeley (home of Unix!), around May 1999, I was a teaching assistant for CS 61B (Introduction to Data Structures) [berkeley.edu]. The course was taught in Java (and before that, C). The UC Berkeley CS labs for introductory undergrad courses are all Unix (Solaris x86, HP-UX, DEC OSF/1).
The lecturer received a letter from a Microsoft rep with a proposition to switch to Microsoft technologies, offering all of the software that we could possibly want. It was, of course, immediately tossed into the recycling bin with some sort of remark containing the word "slimey."
Scary Statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
Academia isn't a software source any more (Score:3, Interesting)
But now, not much comes out of US academia in terms of usable software. The funding isn't there, it isn't perceived as research, and academic computer science departments represent a tiny fraction of computing today.
So, schools that train what are basically Microsoft Certified Software Engineers are probably inevitable.
Very Disappointing (Score:4, Informative)
It is sad to think that MIT CS has become (or could become) a showcase for Microsoft tools.
Cheap research with tax payer matching funds (Score:3, Interesting)
Over the years UNIX has benefited greatly from the fact that Universities like Berkeley, MIT and Stanford published research because BSD was wide open. In 1996, when I was a grad student at Berkeley in CS, Microsoft approached the Profs at Berkeley with the source code for NT. The idea was that Berkeley would do research on NT. Amazingly enough the proposal was considered. Rumor was, and I don't know this for a fact, that the only reason the deal fell through is that while Microsoft was willing to release 100% of the source, they weren't willing to relenquish copyright. Derived worked would be owned by Microsoft, even when published. Berkeley said no.
It is interesting then that Microsoft wants research done on .NET.
This is just euphumism for buying cheap research. While $500 million dollars may seem a lot, its nothing compared to the 4 billion of internal expenditure. What are they getting for that 4 billion? My bet would be that if University profs and students start innovating onHow'd they buy off Hal Abelson? (Score:4, Informative)
What will this mean for future MIT students? Will SCHEME be replaced by C# as the language of choice for entry level CS classes? The article bemoans that many universities are having their CS departments reduced to little better than vocational schools, where knowledge of proprietary software is prized over theory and general concepts that can be applied anywhere. I think this is a very real threat to future innovation.
Microsoft might win more mind-share in the short run, but they'll be screwing the world out of the next generation of advancements in the long run. I, for one, will have grave doubts about sending my offspring to MIT.
Re:Yes because very (Score:5, Interesting)
Besides which, if you think that Microsoft ripping off Q-DOS to make MS-DOS and then copying Apple to make Windows is 'innovative' then I have a bridge that might be for sale...
Re:Yes because very (Score:4, Informative)
their original product was the result of a university research project.
Re:Yes because very (Score:3, Informative)
Most of the technology used in autonomous disaster recovery robots (you know, the ones who go into earthquake zones and the like searching for survivors without any risk to humans?) where almost completely developed at the University level. It's involved NUMEROUS institutions who all contributed a certain piece (for example, I personally worked on flocking algorithms for controlling groups of these things while an undergrad).
Re:Stop with the groupthink already, PLEASE. (Score:3, Insightful)
Or perhaps it has to do with the fact that MS is giving the school a boatload of money and free software to do it? This is MS we're talking about, do you honestly think they DON'T have an agenda with this? Don't be so naive. There's a reason many people on Slashdot bash MS and its not because they're closed source. Its because they make poor software, and use monopolistic practice