North Carolina to raise army of Microsofties

Lets see this in another light

When I was in the chemical industry, and our company had GSA privilege, there were a ton of regulations involved. Since GSA got the lowest price we could offer to anyone, I'm not sure how free product being given to a government facility, as Michael C noted, would be handled, when they already had an agreed-upon price listed with Federal/State purchasing. I'm not sure that this is legal either. It didn't used to be legal to give free product to one party and not give free product to another... back in the days of price controls. I'm wondering that if the State government wanted free, why not just grab Open Office? A Microsoft cert for "Typing in Word" is worth how much? This is a big poke-in-the-eye for Apple though. They located their data center in NC while Microsoft located their's in Virginia.

I truly hope that the Reg stays on top of this one! I doubt Steve Jobs is going to be quiet for long. :) Ric

RE: Power Outage

"students that have no clue what to do if there is a power failure"

That is already pretty much the case in in the US of A.

Standard public education is on such on such a poor level that the vast majority can't spot 5 capital cities outside the US, do basic calculations without aid with numbers over two digits, relative sentences are not appreciated for being cocky/for showoffs, etc, etc.

The fact that it has the highest number of illiterates among the countries priding themselves to make the "first world" should speak for itself.

Plus, the youngsters have a serious media addiction, I don't know what else to call it...

So in a sense this is only an adaption to a reality that is very much appreciated by government and industry. At least I can see, apart from the business side, plain purpose in this.

You need only so many smart people to run a business per so many more to do the simpler tasks without complaining and trying to raise up.

And let's face it, MS software, from office applications to their administration tools and practices, is monkey safe.

You sir,

are most certainly not alone. I too poured a steaming hot cup of RAGE as I read the article. I just hope that we don't end up with anything quite so fucking asinine over here in Blighty.

see icon.

That will be all.

But it is not open source

True, there is little to complain about getting free software as a good deal, but remember this is the 'free' option beloved of crack dealers: "go on, try it, first hit is free..." Later you pay dearly.

Were it not for MS' track record in not being interoperate, in making some systems deliberately incompatible, and of course the fiasco over railroading MS Office as an 'open' ISO standard (which you might want to note, that Office still is not fully compliant with!) I might be pleased.

But as it stands, I see this as nothing short of an attempt to make sure the students don't see the alternatives, don't get used to the idea that *you* own your PC and can should be free to use it as you please, and don't learn to deal with computer diversity. So fail a year or two later when things change.

@Blarkon

The argument about Open Source documentation and training material illustrates a circular problem, that of who actually pays to develop the documentation and training.

Training material costs money to develop, so people to do this sort of thing for a living expect to get something back to make it worth their while. Open source organisations can build a business model around this, but they have to get paid for the training and consultancy they provide. Free software does not mean free training.

Microsoft, on the other hand, can divert money paid to them by current customers into developing the training material to lock in the next generation of customers, who will then fund the next generation ad nauseam. And because they have an effective monopoly, they can browbeat the education departments with 'Of course your students need Microsoft Office skills, after all EVERYBODY uses our software'

I'm not saying that this is any different to other programs given to education by vendors, except that Microsoft can use this to reinforce their monopoly paid for by their already locked in customers, in a way that nobody else can.

Of course, in a perfect world, educational institutions would write their own material around open software, and in the spirit of the Open Source movement, contribute that material for other people to use without cost (can you publish training material under GPL, I wonder?)

Unfortunately, this is not an ideal world.