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Intel tells Harvard, 'Cover that Mac!'
datarealm writes "In a story on yahoo, Intel badgered Harvard into covering all iMac kiosks during an Intel sponsored event. Apparently the Intel provided covers trapped heat, forcing the machines to not only be covered, but also powered down." How much of is this happening in donations to education, and what questions need to be asked when companies sponsor these kind of things?
Thanks for the link. It certainly gives a different emphasis to the story. The Yahoo article does not even hint that the display was originally supposed to have been somewhere else. Unless we know why the display had to be moved, and who decided to put Intel's display near a lot of iMacs, we should not assume that Intel set out to disable the iMacs.
Was it a case of "Hi. We have moved your display into a room full of your competitors equipment."? You don't have to be Intel to be upset by that if that is what happened. (But perhaps you have to be Intel to have anyone care that you are upset!)
Sponsors give money for two main reasons:
In this case it was the latter, and it means they're effectively buying a service from Harvard.
Why should they give money to an entity that isn't indicating in return that they're fully behind the sponsor?
Harvard is benefitting from the money. If it doesn't like those terms, there's nothing whatsoever to stop it from accepting the money.
Harvard has obviously done a cost/benefit analysis of selling this part of their reputation, but blame Harvard - not Intel.
Ghost ? A Mac ? No, it's rather easier than that (cheaper too): Configure (but do not personalize a Mac). Boot it from a system CD, copy hard drive to an Appleshare volume. Next Mac: reformat the drive and copy the previous image down. Presto ! And requires no additional software.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
*gets up on same soap box*
Schools used to be a place for learning how to live. They don't teach anything about life anymore <mumble>they don't teach anything anymore</mumble>, everybody's too scared that their kids need protecting. If you protect them from the relativly controlled atmosphere of school how are they ever supposed to learn how to survive in the real world where there are no teachers to run to?
In high school I took Driver's Education, the closest we got to driving in that class was navigating the halls to get to the room. Sure, I learned lots of driving theories, and about how to park with out breaking any laws. Now if I were less than 3 years away from driving when I took this class it may have been more helpful. But either way it did not and could not teach me how to drive, the only way to do that is to get into a car, start it up, and hope you dont kill anybody (yourself included).
This soap box is getting shaky and I have to get back to work, so you can figure out what I was going to say next without me...
Devil Ducky
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
This is just sad. When a school such as Harvard, which has the largest endowment of any school in the nation would even to stop to consider such petty antics, it speaks poorly for the backbones of our universities in general.
all persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental. - Kurt Vonnegut
If M$ gets split, Apple will port its OS to x86.
Very unlikely... Why would they kill their own business (almost only hardware) for such a risky move ? Who would buy Macintosh hardware if cheap PC clones running MacOS would do the job ? OK, the Mac architecture is better than PC's one, but the percentage of people who really care about that is marginal.
Moreover, you're talking about x86. Think about it : if MS is ever split (which I really doubt), it will not be before 2001 or even 2002. By that time (I hope I'm not thinking wishfully), x86 will be out and replaced by the Intel 64 bits Itanium architecture. Would Apple issue a MacOS X version just for old computers ? MacOS' market was always high end desktop machines, why would they suddenly care about oldest PC's ?
Stéphane
Have you checked out Badtech The daily online cartoon?
Have you checked out Badtech The daily online cartoon?
Instant Karma's gonna get you, Gonna knock you right on the head (John Lennon, 1970)
Not hard to explain: movie types are mostly mac-users in the first place, so it's only natural that they's put macs in the movies.
--
Here's my mirror
Here in Korea, you can't publish any advertisement which compares products of one company with products of another company directly, whether it's true or not. I don't think it's allowed in the U.S. also.
You can in the United States (it's very common), but it is not allowed in many parts of Europe.
It's all a bit sad a certainly, and in the UK we're starting to have to deal with this a lot more in the education environment.
I guess - you want the money/ resources - you strike a deal with Babylon.
Trouble is these guys have hardened sales people trained to cut hard deals day in day out, and academics, well they have other things to deal with (and would prefer to spend their time doing). I expect schools and universities are going to get burnt frequently until they start hiring hardened full time marketing people to cut these kind of deals.
(minor rant tinged with sadness..) Ok so put the boot in on European social welfare models of economy, but hey at least when it works it protects the education sector from having to do this kind of dealing rather than educating people...sigh... (off rant)
Hey moron, some people want just that. Take me for instance. I made my computer by buying every indivual piece (down to the internal fans and cables). Whenever a part fails or goes obsolete, I find a good deal on a replacement. I've been doing that for years now.
I never bought a floppy drive or SCSI card for my machine. There wasn't a need. What would I need a floppy drive for? To install windows? Linux installations can boot from the CD. Floppies, besides being small and unreliable (I used to have one fail on me practically every week, when I needed them at high school) are also agonizingly slow. I have a CD burner and a Zip 250, and I don't even use 'em much. Any file transfer/storage I need to do I do on my home ethernet, or across the internet.
I'd love to have a nice fast SCSI adapter, but they're just too expensive, so I can go without.
--
grappler
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Now, AMD have x86-64/Sledegammer sitting there - fully backwards compatible, but extended. Also, if current form continues, better bang per buck.
;)
AMD has gained some credibility in the last months, but I really doubt they are strong enough to dictate the plateform the average Joe will use in the future.
Now, who's _honestly_ going to buy something that's slower for the price, and where the performance sucks even more for everything you've got right now - the only benefit is with stuff months down the line?
Slower and sucking performance... That's another big assumption
Moreover, who still cares about real, measured performance ? The recent 1Ghz hoopla (even if it eventually turned in the favor of AMD) shows that what's really important is the marketing, the eye candy. Those chips were 'simple' Athlons/PIII's, but 1Ghz sounded sooooo sweet.
I first though about writing 2 lines about AMD in my original posting, but the topic has been discussed so many times before : we finally have the possibility to get rid of this x86 mess. It took Intel 15 years to give us a non-x86 processor. I really hope the market won't perpetuate x86's hegemony by buying Sledgehammers.
When Intel decided to help porting Linux to the IA64, they made it clear that open source OSes can help the transition : when most of the applications just need a recompilation to work on a new platform, the pain of migration disappears magically !
Stéphane
Have you checked out Badtech The daily online cartoon?
Have you checked out Badtech The daily online cartoon?
Instant Karma's gonna get you, Gonna knock you right on the head (John Lennon, 1970)
guest: what was that thing over there?
really smart harvard guy: what thing? (acting nonchalant)
guest: that thing...it looks like an imac with a cover over it?!?!
really smart harvard guy: that...uh...that was a pigeon!
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
A lot of the same stuff (brand wars) is going on in junior high and high schools with Pepsi and Coke - Not just early advertising, but downright force of product in order to get donations. Is it just me, or is brand-consciousness going WAAAAY overboard here?
It's not like Intel was totally in the wrong in not wanting competitor products in the faces of the participants, but this kind of in-your-face no-holds-barred product endorsement smells almost like extortion to me.
"I'm not even supposed to BE here today!"
They weren't 100% right. Obviously they didn't want all the jokes along the lines of "Hey, did you see all those Macs in the intel publicity pictures".
Unfortunately they still insisted that preventing these jokes was more important to them than what they were funding. They should have backed down when they found that they were causing too much hassle. Partly out of consideration for others and aprtly out of good PR.
Here is a link to the story from The Crimson, Harvard's newspaper.
I would rather corporations making donations to educational institutions expected no short-term return at all: no publicity, no co-branded buildings or labs. But little-picture corporate leadership could never let that happen, sadly. If a university sells out, it should expect to face the consequences.
I wish there was another source of funding for universities and organizations that didn't involve selling out... but there isn't.
Gosh, it'd be wonderful if teachers didn't *have* to unionise to protect themselves.
They really have little choice. The school boards and government ministries are incredibly abusive toward their employees.
Without unions, class sizes would be enormous, teachers would not have lunch breaks because they'd have to monitor the schoolyard, extracurricular activity coaching would be mandatory and wages would be more abysmal than they already are.
As long as teachers are employees of a hostile employer, they'll have to be unionised. That's really unfortunate.
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Well my school didn't have recognized frats & sororities because they don't permit anyone who applies to join. And as it happens, many of the students don't really like them anyway.
;)
OTOH, we didn't have a football team anymore either, because except for about 50 years ago, they haven't really tried to recruit athletes. It was a lousy school for that; there was one race that I remember our team only beat another team that was unable to finish altogether.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
This isn't totally off-topic, but since we're talking about brand exposure for Apple...
Been to the movies lately? Have you ever noticed that when a movie is set on Earth, in the U.S., in the present day, whenever a character uses a computer, it's always an iMac, or some kind of Mac?
I saw Road Trip the other day. In both Josh and Tiffany's dorms, they have iMacs. The characters never use them, but the colourful neon green plastic looming in the background is unmistakeable. In Whatever It Takes, the characters who send email to each other use iMacs. Heck, in Independence Day, a Mac laptop is used to create and upload a "virus" to an alien computer.
It seems that, either by giving money to Hollywood Studios and asking them to include Macs, or supplying Macs to the studios as props, Apple is trying to make it so that when the general public thinks "computer", they think "iMac" or "Macintosh".
Of course, this isn't true of all movies -- remember the "hybrid" computers in Office Space?
This probably isn't as outlandish as it seems-- I'm sure Coke is responsible for characters in certain movies drinking Coke and Pepsi is responsible for other movies showing Pepsi vending machines and Pepsi trucks...
Has anyone else noticed this?
I believe this is the case whether the money being pursued is corporate or from taxpayers (i.e., teachers indoctrinating students to push their parents to vote in favor of bond measures).
Don't get me wrong; educators are entitled to make a living. However, they should be primarily interested in turning out well-rounded, educated youth.
--
Wow. I managed to piss off both sides...I must be doing something right! :-)
--
But that's *exactly* my point. That despite lower costs and lesser facilities, they turn out better educated students.
I'm really just trying to argue that the focus on funding is somewhat misguided. You need a certain baseline level of money, and beyond that, you're not going to see any educational benefits.
--
But I went to public school, so there you go... :-)
--
School teacher appears on the monitor. ... You, in Cleveland..."?
[teacher]"Today's lesson is sponsored by Pepsi, the Choice of a New Generation. If I have 5 Pepsi's, and I give two Pepsi's to Jane, how many Pepsi's do I have left?
[little girl]"Pepsi?"
[teacher]"Partial Credit"
Funny, but also sad at the same time :-)
make world, not war
But we in the U.S. had schools free of this nonsense for two hundred years.
I think it has little to nothing to do with our economic model; I think it has to do with a declining sense of morals and ethics among educators, and really among people in general.
It's simply ethically wrong for a school to enter into these types of arrangements. But the focus in education in the U.S. over the past twenty years has been money, money, money. The teachers' unions have been pushing for more money every election, despite the obvious fact that money (above a certain baseline) has no relationship to the quality of education. Our most horrendous schools in the U.S. happen to be in the school districts (like Washington, D.C.) with the highest per-student expenditures.
Our privately-run schools tend to do a much better job, while spending a fraction of the money of the state-run schools. The figures from a few years back were, I think, in Los Angeles, $7,200 per student in the L.A. Unified School District vs. $3,000 per student in the Catholic schools there. And the Catholic schools were turning out better educated students, even though they also had a reasonable share of economically disadvantaged students.
--
For example, Intuit used to (perhaps still does) donate Quicken software to high schools for use in personal finance classes. Not just because Intuit wants high school students to have balanced checkbooks (yeah, right), but because when those same students need to buy software, they will buy the software they already know.
Same for Intel, they are doing it partly for charity, mostly for good PR. Why would they want to have a photo of their CEO or whoever is speaking at the event standing in front of a roomful of iMacs? Sort of like having Ray Kroc (sp? from McDonalds) giving a speech about Big Macs in front of a Burger King banner.
Basically, is everyone here just looking for something to complain about? Seems like it to me.
Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?
Intel Guy: If you can't see them, they can't see you
Havard Guy: Uh? Are you referering to the Macs?
Intel Guy: They don't exist, if I can't see them they don't exist
Havard Guy: Sure they do look [removing cover to reveal an iMac]
Intel Guy: PUT IT BACK ON!!!! PUT IT BACK ON!!!!
Havard Guy: [quickly re-covers the iMac]
Intel Guy: [starts rocking back and forth] STEVE JOBS IS THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, STEVE JOBS IS THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, STEVE JOBS IS THE CATCHER IN THE RYE!
Havard Guy: Are you alright Sir, can I get you a glass of water or something?!?
Intel Guy: [is still rocking back and forth] STEVE JOBS IS THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, STEVE JOBS IS THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, STEVE JOBS IS THE CATCHER IN THE RYE!
Havard Guy: Please settle down, can I get your anything, you want to sit down, a glass of water?
Intel Guy: [still rocking back and forth] THEY DON'T EXIST, MY CEO TOLD ME SO, THEY DON'T EXIST, MY CEO TOLD ME SO. THEY TOOK US INTO A ROOM AND GAVE US THESE SUGAR CUBES AND MADE US WATCH IMACS GET BROKEN AND SMASHED. THE VIDEO HAD MILLIONS OF MACS GETTING DESTORIED, THEY SAID THEY DESTORIED ALL OF THEM, THEY SAID THEY DON'T EXIST!! THEY DON'T EXIST, MY CEO TOLD ME SO, STEVE JOBS IS THE CATCHER IN THE RYE!
Havard Guy: [being sly] the Mac's died in the 1990's when Intel realsed the pentium that destoried them all [??]
Intel Guy: [shaking and in a cold sweat] what is going on, where am I, what happened?
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
The point is not that Intel took some hits from demanding that these iMacs be convered. The point is that any other college budget approver, looking to see what he can do to optimize funding, may fear purchasing an iMac because Intel may pass them over.
That's the idea. Buy Apple, and your students suffer. Buy Intel, and your bribe is on its way.
There's a strong difference, of course, between the certainly legitimate and healthy educational activism of Intel and straight bribery. What Intel's staff failed to recognize was that by harassing Harvard's staff, they converted whatever positive good will they could get from the event into a negative, tainted force.
Fear can buy you alot. Respect buys you more. That's a hard lesson to learn; hopefully Intel will learn from this. Paranoid responsibility is valuable. Paranoid violence leads to the very press-connected Harvard getting harassed. Oops.
They'll learn. It's in their character--or at least, it was. If it still ain't, well, AMD can pop open some champagne glasses...
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
That's a big assumption, and one I wouldn't want to make
Intel want us to move to IA64/Itanium - but it's not a straightforward migration path and it's not too clever re: performance of legacy stuff - or, at least, wasn't last time I heard.
Now, AMD have x86-64/Sledegammer sitting there - fully backwards compatible, but extended. Also, if current form continues, better bang per buck.
Now, who's _honestly_ going to buy something that's slower for the price, and where the performance sucks even more for everything you've got right now - the only benefit is with stuff months down the line?
Intel could well have dropped the ball here. I'd honestly reckon AMD's route has an equal - at worst - chance of success.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
Harvard should have realized that they do in fact have a great deal of power here. They could easily have said- "No we will not cover the Macs, and if you insist, then you can just pull your money out of here."
Intel would have caved completely. Imagine the press reporting that Intel refused to sponsor Harvard because they would not cover the Macs.
Seems like the problem here is cowardice on both sides. Remember that bullies are as much cowards as those who don't stand up to them.
The irony of course is that Intel has just annoyed a bunch of students with their trade show - students going to a prestigious university. Now, what kind of impression have they made?
And the professors? How inclined are they now to trust Intel technology? Want to bet that 90%-use-of-Mac may just increase?
Lesson for Intel: Bad for customers, bad for you in the end.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Harvard already lacks adequate computer facilities. The labs are always filled and far too small. The SC kiosks are one of the few places on campus were you can easily check your E-mail during the day. Otherwise you have to go all the way back to your dorm. The kiosks get a lot of use and are very convenient. To think that the students would give them up because there is a conference nearby is silly. As far as Harvard goes the Science Center is a "public" space. The conference was sharing the space just like the Greenhouse does, just like the Cabot library does, just like the numerous classrooms, labs, and lecture halls in the building do.
The media lab in question (that the yahoo/ZDNet article mentioned) is pretty far down the hall and around a bend from where the conference was. Actually quite a walk aways. And it has glass windows so if you looked closely perhaps you could see a Mac. To think that they papered over these windows is just stupid.
btw, I've always thought the SC was a poor place to hold a conference.
Intel asked that Harvard put covers on the iMacs.. That was reasonable enough.
But the covers made the iMacs overheat.. The iMacs case is mostly airvents... hard to cover without blocking that...
Harvard should have taken the covers back to Intel and told them what was wrong. They didn't.
Intel didn't ask them to turn iMacs off.. They told them to cover same. It was purely a university choice to turn the iMacs off...
I'm shure Intel when faced with it would have backed down and said ok leave the iMacs alone.
This is the truely scary part.. Not so much what Intel asked but that the University took action in the name of Intel..
I think this should be noted...
Schools are waisting money on stuff not needed.. local governments trying to ballence budgets won't allocate needed funds... lots of evil money issues that a sponsership quickfix can help handle.
But at what cost?
Universitys are teaching ethical behavure (a function I an allready conserned about) now that ethical behavure is up for sale.. what shall we teach the new workforce...
(Coffie/Cola) Work ethics.. yes this is good.. but then we can forget to teach about sleep depervation. No Coke-a-cola wouldn't ask that but the Universitys would do it anyway...
It's not just that companys are paying money and asking something in return. Thats bad enough...
But Intel, Coke, and so forth would avoid asking anything that could turn into bad press...
But education institutions want to look good to the sponsers.. They don't consider the bad press they could generate for same...
So Harvard turns iMacs off for Intel...
Ispocan University removes all refrence to sleep depervation for a coffie sponser...
And Hoho Collage forgets you can get sports injurts even with protective gear for a company that sells same.
It's not what they asked for.. It's what they do on there own that scares me....
I don't actually exist.
if they hadn't asked for the macs to be taken out of view, people would be posting about how stupid they were to have an event surrounded by kiosks provided by their competition.
They weren't saying to get rid of the macs forever, just put them out of sight for the event.
I don't see any problem here. Hardly up to par with some other things big evil companies are doing these days.
Here in Korea, you can't publish any advertisement which compares products of one company with products of another company directly, whether it's true or not. I don't think it's allowed in the U.S. also.
You can in the United States (it's very common), but it is not allowed in many parts of Europe.
A correction: It is legal to compare products directly in the U.S., but only if the comparison is true. Otherwise the offending company can be charged with False Advertising, a serious enough offense that it is avoided. However, the ad execs know how to get their point across and what results is more creative ways of saying "Our product is better than theirs" or strange attempts at confusing the consumer enough to buy their product.
Dave
Does it make sense to inconvenience students paying major dough and hamper people working on other donors' grant money so that one mid level manager can light up an exploding PR cigar?
Last time I checked, universities were supposed to be about teaching and research, not holding trade shows.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I submitted this story, with the link to the less-sensational Crimson story, several days ago. It got rejected, I guess I should have looked around for something written with more editorial content.
2000-06-09 14:45:45 Intel makes Harvard hide iMacs during Intel-sponsored event (articles,intel) (rejected)
Normally I bypass all these posts too, but I used to get my news from Slashdot, now I just see old news here. Can we get some submission guidelines written up, so we don't waste our time submitting things over and over again?
To keep this relatively on topic, I don't think that Intel did it necessarily to hide their competitors products, but they could have made an effort to accomodate the students a little more, that's for sure.
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When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
The main computer lab in the Science Center is, if I remeber correctly, about 40% Ultrix on DEC Alphas, 40% Macs, and only about 10% or so PC's (as opposed to the public access terminals in question, in the lobby). I wonder what Intel though about that?
The Imac kiosks in the main lobby (I remeber them as being mainly 7xxx's and 8xxx's, though, but it's been about 6 months since I was there) are basically Netscape and telnet boxes, locked down in such a way as to be useless as Macs, i.e., they are effectively dumb terminals, useful only for anonymous web surfing and telnetting to other systems (Harvard's main systems are Solaris and Ultrix).
All things considered, Intel-based systems seem to be in the minority in the Science Center.
darren
Cthulhu for President!
(darren)
Direct link to Crimson Story without all the inane Yahoo editorializing.
So: not content with being one of the biggest suppliers of CPUs to your average user, Intel don't even want to acknowledge that other suppliers exist.
Pathetic. If you feel like it, why not point as many hacks as you can back to the original story? That should generate a fair amount of low-grade embarrasment for Intel for the next few weeks.
Those with a little more spare time on their hands should check out Fred Hoyle's "A for Andromeda". As Lovecraft remarked, "The old ones are... the old ones".
Love and kisses,
Simon
"Free Luna!"
-- Free Luna!
I wonder if Intel has learnt anything from Microsoft - shutting down other machines on events that they "just sponsor", is like Microsoft forcing OEMs to only use IE, and treat them if they want to use Netscape ... Bad attitude Intel .. Will we see Intel bashing companies to use intel platforms instead of f.x Transmeta?
-Stskeeps, http://unrealircd.com
["A company in the PC business" hindered Macs from public view, or access.]
But.. I've never heard that the Apple did the similar thing ever.
Are the companies in the PC business not moral, or the Apple people are stupid enough that they can't protect their business, or.. simply the article were just rumor?
If it's true, it's very serious issue. Maybe it's worse case than the MS's dominance in the PC industry.
Here in Korea, you can't publish any advertisement which compares products of one company with products of another company directly, whether it's true or not.
I don't think it's allowed in the U.S. also.
And.. the case we talk about is much more serious than that.
Hmm..
Intel, Microsoft, AOL, other companies - we've seen them judged as evil, manipulating, grasping, etc. One trait that is not often considered is that they are also out of touch - and the case of the "Mac War" is an excellent example.
Remove Macs in use in a department that's 90% Mac? Threaten to pull funding over a childish tiff? Forget any moral questions - how stupid can people be?
This does nothing more than make people bitter and angry and make the company look bad. It's made national news, its been displayed here, and now Intel looks a bit stupider. Is anyone involved in this fiascon on the Intel side thinking?
Some of the big Info/Tech/Soft companies remind me of companies in Hollywood - churning out product and making policy with no idea what's going on or what the repercussions are. I have to wonder how long they can dodge real life.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
On the one side, you've got student-critical functionality.
Uh, actually, no. Someone mentioned earlier that the other public terms on the first floor of the science center were left up and running. They're all Macs too. The ones that were off were sitting right in the middle of the exhibits. Secondly, there are two labs full of Macs in the basement, as well as IBM's and Alpha stations, all of which do everything that the iMacs do, and more. There is also another lab and the tech showcase on the first floor, right around the corner. No Harvard students suffered because of this, save for those two lazy to take the very nearly 15 stairs down to the basement (where there are chairs, unlike the kiosks upstairs). At most, it was a minor inconvenience, not a chilling threat to students ability to get connected. Comperable to when a dignitary visits, and we have to walk a block over or not shortcut through a yard because security has it locked down. I think that what Intel did was bad PR, but I think it's been blown way out of proportion.
Am I the only one who thinks that Intel was 100% right? They were the ones splashing the dosh so they had every right to ask for iMacs to be covered.
This event cost a lot of money, and attracted a lot of attention. If you were paying big money to sponsor an event would you like your biggest competitor getting free advertising from your money?
If Harvard does not like it, they should find sponsorshipt money from elsewhere. But I doubt that anyone would pay without asking for something in return.
Actually, the really scary thing here has nothing do with Intel and market share, but how much an educational institution can be beholden to one of its benefactors. This was simply a case of a corportation donating money to a university, then dictating to that university how things ought to be run...
As long as our educational institutions feel the need to play along with corporate sponsors, these situations will continue to occur. And with all the big money grants and donations available, more and more schools will feel the urge to get some of that money for themselves. Unfortunately, this can only hurt the students and faculty, ultimately.
If an institution of higher learning is beholden to _any_ interest, corporate or otherwise, they can longer freely pursue their academic interests in _all_ avenues, if a free, unfettered way. That would be a greater blow to our freedom than anything MS or Intel or any other monopoly has done to date.
Of course I use Microsoft. Setting up a stable unix network is no challenge
Before Intel pulled this stunt, I had no idea that Harvard had public, iMac based Internet kiosks.
Now there are probably lots of other people out there who are thinking that maybe a nicely styled iMac with a trackball would make a pretty nice and relatively inexpensive kiosk for their campuses.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
As long as our educational institutions feel the need to play along with corporate sponsors, these situations will continue to occur. And with all the big money grants and donations available, more and more schools will feel the urge to get some of that money for themselves. Unfortunately, this can only hurt the students and faculty, ultimately.
The damage has been going on for 30+ years already. The entire university landscape has been dramatically altered by the growth of federal research funding, and any large-scale corporate funding is not going to make things that much worse. As a faculty member in a research university, I can assure everyone that no university is going to think twice about getting money from wherever it can.
My employer, like every other public university, never gets enough money from the state legislature. The only ways to deal with growing operating costs is (a) increased tuition or (b) grants and gifts. Rather than pass costs for new equipment on to the students, or beg for it from the legislature and Board of Regents, a school would much rather take a corporate donation.
Faculty members and university administrators fully realize the potential conflicts, but taking money or equipment from a company like Intel is better than the alternative - no modern lab equipment or computers for the students. If you are unhappy about this situation, consider the alternative: Would you be willing to pay 2X tuition, or a 2% higher state sales tax, or a 5% higher state income tax, etc., to provide your state's public univerities with enough money? If not, then it's moot to complain about corporate influence in higher education.
What they learned was that many higher institutions can be bought out for the right price, as demonstrated by the "academic research" chairs many Fortune 500 companies have helped finance.
And much like the Pepsi Arena, whomever's renting the tent for a show can drink whatever they like...those iMacs wouldn't have been covered if a "donation" by Steve Jobs had helped put paint new lines in the faculty parking lot.
I propose that we colonize Alpha Centauri. Marketing people, being so essential to our society, get to leave on the first ship, along with the telephone sanitizers and record company executives.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Apparently the Intel provided covers trapped heat, forcing the machines to not only be covered, but also powered down.
Not only that, but you couldn't insert or remove a floppy, either...oh, wait...
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You are in a twisty little maze of open source licenses, all different.
Intel clearly is not making any friends here. It's a dumbheaded move that will do them more harm than good.
But what about Harvard? If you look at the Crimson Online story, you'll see that the Computer Services (FACS) group diod not believe that covering the Macs was the right thing to do.
According to the article:
(1) "FASCS Director Franklin M. Steen said he felt the request unfairly impaired student usage."
(2) "[Steen] allowed the computers to be covered 'only after multiple request and great reluctance.'"
So if Harvard felt that this was wrong, why didn't they refuse the request? It's a prestigious, rich institution that could have afforded to tell Intel to take a hike. If Harvard has to kowtow to the corporate gods, what kind of hope is there for other academic institutions?
They probably figured it wasn't worth fighting. That's their decision to make, but still, it's kinda sad.
it's standard business practice to keep your product center stage in any corporate event you sponsor. Trying to twist this into some big evil plot to control the world is just wrong, and makes you look stupid in the process.
AC,
On the one side, you've got student-critical functionality.
On the other, you've got a direct threat against a source of funding.
Intel demanded that Harvard disable student-critical functionality in return for cash. That they demanded any institution pimp out its reason for being on the basis of a cash grant is evil; that they did this to Harvard was the height of idiocy.
I keep on bringing it up(cue broken record), but it's reminiscent of Microsoft revoking Compaq's right to sell Windows, or forcing IBM to buy Win95 off the street: To attack anyone else liket this, it's evil marketing practices. To attack major multinationals such as Compaq or IBM like that, it's just stupid.
You're absolutely right, AC--they thought of themselves as keeping their product center stage. The problem was they forget both where they were(an educational institution with a primary purpose distinctly different from selling stuff, i.e. a trade show) and, even worse, exactly where they were. Screwing with Academia is one thing, screwing with Harvard is far stupider.
They'll learn.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Not only was I an exhibitor right next to the covered Macs in question, but 5 years ago I was a student using those same Mac terminals to check my email.
The Macs in question were directly (2 feet) behind 3 exhibitors - for students to use the terminals they would have had to have been continuouslly tromping through the the exhibits. There were 20+ exhibits in all - Intel had one, and it happened to be the one in front of the email terminals (the iMacs) - they would have wanted them shut down no matter what brand they were. They were covered to keep students from walking up and booting them up (which they would still occasionally do anyway.)
Finally, Harvard left a number of Mac terminals open at the edges of the exhibit hall, in plain view. It was only the terminals that sat in the middle of the exhibits that were turned off and covered.
This whole thing smacks of a bunch of whiny Ivy league kids with nothing better to do. Remember Intel spent a _bundle_ funding that conference and the majority of exhibitors and participants were from non-profit organizations. Give the company some credit when it deserves it.
+--------------------- You idiot! I told you we were facing the wrong way!