[ale] Microsoft "Gift" to Alma Mater

[Greg]

I would first get *ALL* of the facts.  See if MS has an in-house program for
making these gifts and if the employees who do this are compensated in any
manner.  I would figure out the real cost of running this stuff - an
increase in HW expense for example.  If they donated software and that
requires certain other programs to run, then I would figure this in - if for
instance they donated XP Office and the school has to buy and maintain XP OS
to use the Office Suite then I would bring this out.  MS tried to do this in
Africa and it backfired.  Can MS give HW instead ? or $$$ ?? (yeah, right)

If these gifts were going to be bought anyway by the school ... well ...
good luck - you have a tough row to hoe.

Greg


> -----Original Message-----
> From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org]On Behalf Of Jeff
> Hubbs
> Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2003 5:08 PM
> To: ale at ale.org
> Subject: [ale] Microsoft "Gift" to Alma Mater
>
>
> I've recently learned that three fellow alumni of my high school
> (www.mccallie.org) who are now Microsoft employees have made a gift of
> MS software to the school.  See
> http://www.mccallie.org/news/summer2003/Summer2003.pdf, page 3 for the
> story.
>
> I know full well that such "gifts" are somewhat less than that because
> they cost Microsoft nothing (in fact, it seems the only people who lost
> money are the alumni and it went to Microsoft, not the school) and I
> have my suspicions that the actual agreement winds up restricting the
> school's use of the software and may in fact restrict the use of 8any
> other* software.
>
> If I do write, I don't want to shovel up a bunch of insinuations and
> FUD.  Rather, I really only want to give them information as a concerned
> alumnus and make the case that this "gift" is nothing of the kind.  I do
> want to work in that the school's "Honor, Truth, Duty" is not in keeping
> with Microsoft's business practices especially as it pertains to this
> gifting program.  I also want to point out that MS is dropping support
> on its desktop OSses after less than five years
> (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1410081,00.asp), setting a
> precedent for all current and future MS products.
>
> I'd be interested in hearing how some of you would respond.
>
> By the way, this is where I first encountered computers.  I worked
> extensively on the DG Nova 2 and 3 minicomputers described in the
> article on pp. 1 and 2 and two of the three alumni featured were
> contemporaries and/or friends of mine.
>
> - Jeff
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>