[vox] FWD: How Linux helps Microsoft

[Shwaine]

On Wed, 1 Sep 2004, Bill Kendrick wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 01, 2004 at 10:19:03AM -0700, Ken Bloom wrote:
>>
>> They mention a cost study, and we all know how effective those are.
>> (They don't even mention whose study it was, or what it compared)
>
> I dislike when schools and gov'ts decide to accept MS's price cuts.
> First off, are they _guaranteed_ lower prices from now until the end
> of time?  I'm wary of anything that /apparently/ costs a lot, but somehow
> can be sold to me for much cheaper for some reason.
> (*cough* "First time's free...")
>

This analogy is rather close to the likely marketting motivations of 
Microsoft, particularly in elementary schools. However, I don't think the 
spin is to hook the school, that's a rather limited customer base. It's 
more likely they want to hook the home machines of all the students. If 
the child's school has only WinXP computers, then the parents will likely 
feel pressure to have the same thing at home. Unless the parents (or 
others in the home environment) are tech saavy enough to know how to set 
up a Linux (or Mac or BSD, etc) box such that the child can easy use it 
and transfer documents and such between school and home, this tactic is 
likely to work, particularly with the younger grade levels where the 
children may not possess the skills or maturity to easily switch between 
two different OSes in the home and school environment.