<Quote>
For Jake Basile, a computer science major at the University of Akron
in Ohio, being an outspoken fan of Microsoft Corp.'s .Net programming
tools sometimes feels as lonely as being a young Republican, which he
also is. [It figures...]
"I'm not a member of the campus ACM group because everyone there uses
entirely open-source stuff, which I think is way too close-minded,"
Basile said, referring to the Association for Computing Machinery.
[Right, open-source=closed mind...maybe he has a midnight job as a
cola troll...]
This semester, the sophomore has only one .Net class that involves the
use of Microsoft's Visual Studio development tools. The rest are being
taught in Java using Sun Microsystems Inc.'s NetBeans software and a
free open-source programming tool called jGRASP, Basile said.
Despite the popularity of .Net within companies and other employers,
Microsoft has seen its standing among students continue to be eroded
by a combination of open-source programming tools and Adobe Systems
Inc.'s Web design software.
[So now MS is giving away .Net software, in a program called
DreamSpark...Gates at Stanford...
list of software made available for free...MS will do this in other
countries too, talks of reaching 1 billion students...yes, we want to
control the world....]
"This is a very good move on Microsoft's part," said John Andrews, CEO
of Evans Data Corp., a market research firm that focuses on software
development. "Student developers are a huge market that Microsoft must
address to counter the open-source movement."
[Sun, IBM open source competitors...] Similarly, Windows Server is
battling against Linux, which is heavily backed by IBM, while SQL
Server has to contend with the open-source MySQL database, which Sun
is in the process of acquiring under a deal announced last month.
Over the past few years, Microsoft has responded to the open-source
challenge by offering Express editions of Visual Studio and SQL Server
that students, hobbyists and other developers can use for free. Those
products supplemented the academic discounts that Microsoft offers.
And at schools that have signed subscription licensing deals under
Microsoft's Campus Agreement program, students can install any of the
covered software on their PCs.
[First one's free...]
In addition to the incursions that Microsoft faces from open-source
tools, the company's Expression Studio suite remains a huge underdog
to Adobe's trio of Illustrator, Flash and Photoshop among budding
graphic and Web designers, according to Chris Swenson, a software
analyst at The NPD Group Inc. Making Expression Studio freely
available to students is "the fastest way Microsoft could jump-start
adoption," Swenson said.
[Microsoft figures they don't make much money from students anyway...]
Basile agreed with the latter assertion, saying that most of his
classmates simply pirate Microsoft's products or use the free open-
source alternatives. "For a college student, it could literally be the
choice between paying $50 for Visual Studio or eating that week," he
said.
Making any software free and easily attainable for students,
especially those in poorer nations, could help Microsoft cut the
demand for "bogus bootleg copies," said Charles King, an analyst at
Pund-IT Inc.
[How to make software free to students without making pirating
easy...]
To continue getting updates and patches, students will need to verify
their identity with Microsoft annually, Wilson said.
[Restrictions to educational use only....No plans to offer Vista
free...]
</Quote>
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9063382&pageNumber=2
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