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Will CS Students Switch From Microsoft?
spotter writes: "There's an article in Newsweek International that talks about how Microsoft's tactics are turning off an entire generation of CS students from their products and increasing the fortunes of Linux." The article isn't deep or flawless, but hits on a major point: what students learn in school is key to what they go on to do.
While the article brings up an interesting point, most of my friends who are still in college actually aren't interested in Microsoft for a different reason. As bright, motivated, hard working people, they see Microsoft as a place that has had its moment of glory in the sun; true growth will spring from other, more innovative companies with new ideas. While Microsoft guarentees plenty of money, I see CS people as wanting to be with the next big thing, not the last big thing. I'm not in CS, but if I were, I wouldn't want to be a Microserf either.
I just reloaded my home PC this weekend. Replaced a slowly dying Pentium II with a newer AMD box, which required reinstalling everything on the new box.
Everything went fine until I got to Outlook 2002, which won't accept my serial number (since it's "registered to another computer" - no kidding. That box is headed towards the dumpster).
Apparently my only choice (besides tossing the piece of junk software out with the old PC) is to call microsoft and try to get it re-registered through that process. I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to get me to buy a new copy since the old one was tied to that processor.
Microsoft, you sure are making it easy to break up with you...
*scoove*
1st-As much fun as it is paying a few hundred dollars (including student discount) for a 'stable 'operation system, let alone development tools, its better, and cheaper, to get them for free.
2nd- As a student, it is better to open up some code under the GPL and see how you can implement things, rather than see the application run. Linux apps are a great place to see howto write things, and what good coding style looks like.
3rd- The university that I goto only uses windows for the public labs, duh, and the first year CS labs. Second year uses a combination of NetBSD and solaris boxes.( Gnome and KDE are being looked at).
Since then, I have learned patience, and am getting increasingly fed-up with MS.
This is why I think the baby-CS folks will go with open source: MS doesn't document well, and they don't follow guidelines.
I thought VB was pretty OK, till I started developing with PHP and realized that a language (even though it is just a scripting language) can actually work exactly how the documenatation says it should. And besides that, the documentation is searchable, and organized gasp.
I am about ready to dump Windows for good, just because I like PHP/mySQL way better than anything MS can throw together (read: ASP).
To summarize, I think CS folks goto Linux 'cause it is written with functionality, not profitability, in mind.
Of course, having generations of CS students hating Microsoft will only help Linux. However, Microsoft will not topple automatically over time.
At Oberlin, I helped install Linux & BSD on all of our lab machines, and with a friend founded the our (still active) Oberlin Linux User's Group. But living in NY, I have seen the worth of C++, Linux System Administration and Perl skills go down while my friends who can hack Java and VB are always in demand. The moral - as harsh as it seems - is that students who learn Linux in college will probably just have to learn Microsoft later.
That MS has dumbed down their software to the point that you realy need very little learning to be able to be very effective with it. with Unix, you need to more time and resources. If you are able to learn how to admin using Unix, you can then pick up a book on win 2k and learn what you need from it to be able to admin a windows network. you make better use of your resources in the University if you spend it learning Unix than if you spent it learning somthing that a book and 3 months on the job caouls teach you.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
here at CWRU, microsoft showers us with donations of hardware for the labs, and software and books for the students. as well as contests, events, and has been incredibly helpful for our branch of the ACM. as for documentation, free copies of MSDN and all the microsoft press books you could ever want go a long way. A large chunk of the Comp Sci's even intern out there. myself included. I started out loving unix, but the dot-com crash and the shady recruiting of some more linuxy corps made me shift more toward MSFT.
you dont see redhat coming by and pitching woo.
I am a senior CS major, and I can tell you for sure that MS's high prices, "rights management" techniques, unethical business practices, and buggy ass software has hurt them. My senior seminar class has been talking about this phenomina. In my class there is a large 'anti-microsoft' sentiment not only among students, but among professors.
This is not only true for the seniors, but a majorirty of the students in my CS classes stay away from MS products as much as a matter of principle, but also because they are not nearly as secure as other alternatives. In an upper level adminstration course we are taught to never use IIS, or ASP on any part of a network that will touch the outside world in anyway. Most projects I'm hearing about are involving Linux, BeOS, Solaris, Java, and JSP.
I don't know about the rest of the world, but if my college is any indication of how things are, MS products may be on the way out in many academic circles, and losing ground in the commercial world as current CS majors graduate, and start getting into decision making areas.
The Linux vs. Microsoft debate is far from over. As a student in England, I have noticed that the current batch of University students who do CS, are split into two camps. As mentioned in the article, many programmers and those who wish to become serious computer professionals, are horrified with current events surrounding the Beast at Redmond. Not only do they recognise the disadvantages of MS products and ethos, they see how linux can be useful to all kinds of users, due to its highy configurable and open nature, as well as its free cost and massive support network.
But the honest truth is that this is only a small proportion of the Computer Science population. Many more casual students: the type of students more suited to simple application programming as well as web design, hate Linux with a passion. Any truly honest computer enthusiast or porfessional knows that for simple functionality, MS Windows cannot be beat. No matter how much we hark on about Bill Gates being the anti-christ and Microsoft as some form of cult, ordinairy users find using Windows relatively painless. [Excluding crashes, inefficiencies, dubious business tactics and annoying paper clips] This goes for students who simply don't care that much about programming and the basics behind computing theory, but are more interested in application of knowledge gained, in the real world.
The whole IT market has grown so large, that many people who come into it looking for work, merely do so for the money. There are many students on my course with a shockingly low level of computer knowledge. These students have no deep interest in computing. They want quick, simple and easy tools computing tools that will allow them to get good jobs doing precious little. These people do not want to be on the forfront of technology, they merely want to ride the wave and let it take them wherever. These people may keep Microsoft alive because they don't care enough about the direction the IT industry is heading to realise what is happening. Until the Linux community tries to beat Microsoft at its own game by making a simple and easy packaging of the OS, that requires little computer knowledge to setup and maintain as well as having the kind of applications that they are used to, Microsoft will maintain its monopoly in the home, workplace and to some extents, academia.
Its for this reason that M$ has "buddied" with some universities (like UT Austin), where they sell full blown professional copies (not educational or home versions) of their software at $5 a cd...
I'm only paranoid because everyone is against me...
I realize you probably understand what the article meant, but give me a break on the MS NBC conspiracy theory. Despite being a partnership between MS and NBC, they show a remarkable lack of favoratism towards MS.If anything, I would say it goes the other way: they go out of their way to disparage MS.
What I am saying, I guess, is never insult with style when you can insult with substance. MSNBC isn't exactly hampered by grade A reporting. This article is a prime example of their particular brand of News-lite.
Basically, it sounds like they called up a couple of people and asked their opinion on MS. Some of them didn't like it. There is not attempt to gather facts, or even a wide range of opinions, no attempt to delve into the reasons these people prefer Linux to Windows other than the simplistic "open source software lets us do more" and "Windows product activation is annoying", both of which are true, but hardly capture the reality of the situation. This is supposed to be exposing a trend, but provides only anecdotal evidence, nothign to indicate whether this is a real movement, or just the opinion of 3 or 4 guys.
At least the corporate PR-news I am used to seeing billed as "tech news" frequently contain facts, however slanted the tone may be.
I've always loved computers, and know that programming and working with them is what I'd like to do. But as this has come closer to being true (because I'm in college now, as opposed to the 7th grade), I have become extreemly disenfranchised with MS. MS was a company that I had always wanted to work for, (or Nintendo) because they make computer products, they do all sorts of cool stuff, and they are based in Seattle, Washington (MAJOR plus for me, used to live there, loved it).
But as I've gotten older, my oppinion has changed. I'm not sure if this is mostly my maturing, reading more news about the computer industry, or a multi-fold increase in the evilness of Microsoft. At this point in my life, I really don't want to work for Microsoft. As it stands (at least from my point of view) is that their products are getting bigger (bloated), buggier, slower, and more expensive. The biggest problem for me is the new features. They seem to keep adding this that are either useless or worse.
Let's review a quick list of "features" as I see them in recent products:
Now don't get me wrong, MS has done some great things too. DirectX started out life very patheticaly, but has really become an excelent API. MS made it so my soundcard doesn't have to be a Sound Blaster, become we all know that in the dos days "compatible" meant "good luck getting your games to work". The only mice and keyboards I have are ALL made by Microsoft, becase they are the most comfortable, and I know there will not be any compatibility problems (although I'm sure that that is rare with keyboards and mice).
The other big thing that has happened to me to change my oppion is Linux. I'm sorry but I just don't see how anyone who is in the CS field can look at Linux and not be inspired. Linus wanted to make his own operating system, and he wanted to it be good. He wanted it free, and now we have Linux. It's free, you can see how it works, and it runs great on hardware that's more than 6 months old. Yes, Linux has some serious problems from the desktop standpoint (we can argue this later), but it's getting there. This has made Linux VERY attractive to me, while MS just seems to sit there saying "I know what you need, it's my newest $100 upgrade that won't change a thing." Of course, what this really means is "don't like the bugs? Too bad! Pony up or suffer!"
It is for these reasons and many more that I have begun to dislike MS. They hold the computer world in the palm of their hands, and so they are squeezing money out of us. Yes, Office is a great program and they should charge a premium for it, but $600 for a full version? $250 for an upgrade? $100 for a full copy of Word? That's ludicrous.
In summation, I don't really want to work for MS anymore. I still like Nintendo, but I think it would also be fun to be at iD and some other companies. I can't think of anyone I've met at my school who don't use Linux, or at least have a grudge against MS. With Microsoft going the way it is, I really don't see how CS students could see them any other way. At this point I'd like to say thanks for listening to my rantings. They are my opinions and once again, I know that I can't spell. I'd copy and paste this into Word to be spell checked, but I don't feel like waiting a full minute for it to open on my 1 ghz laptop that has 512mb of RAM. Also, in reality I'm a CoE student, because I like the harware side too. I used to want to be CS, and I can't help but wonder if I've moved towards CoE in part because of how my feelings of MS have changed.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
None of this matters anyway. WHEN (notice I didn't say if) the SSSCA passes, all Operating Systems besides Windows XP and Apples OS X (MS will give them a license so as not to appear as a monopoly) will be illegal, because Microsoft owns the patent on the idea of a DRM Operating Systsem, the government mandated anti-copying technology will be a closed standard and reverse engineering it will be illegal under the DMCA.
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
-Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development
That's about $1700 (retail) of software that they're giving away.
At an actual cost of less than $20 per attendee, all of which will be written off as a promotional expense. Red Hat, SuSE, FreeBSD and the other Free Unix variants should take a cue from M$ and start calling ISO's "trial versions" or something and claim each download at the retail price as a business expense.
Too bad I'm not in Ohio, sounds like a fun event to pass out Debian CDs at...
but why bother, when gcc + emacs is in the labs and you can get it free at home?
Perhaps you get VS.NET simply because it is better? Better development enviroment. Perhaps you can get a job easier? Perhaps you can be more productive?
There was a recently article in the Wall Street Journal about Microsoft. You can find it here:
0 00 0024869001.html
http://webreprints.djreprints.com/0000000000000
It talks about a variety of the lawsuits, and the most interesting sentence is this one "And AOL's case is not as lead-pipe as its media spin suggests."
What's remarkable about it, is that the article has far more substance than any article on the same issue in any of the tech trade journals, cnet.com, etc. How is it that the WSJ understand the technical world moreso than Infoworld?
I think you really should have taken 'Ethics' in college: yes, absolutely, I can say that if Microsoft (their name isn't really 'M$': M$ is a cartoon, Microsoft is real) offered me financial security for my work, I would turn them down. And yes, I have work worth taking over. I am developing dithering routines that push the state of the art, currently under the GPL. It is thinkable that Microsoft could want to take this over, buy the IP, and patent concepts like IIR noise shaping.
And I don't believe that they have all the money people say they have, but they do certainly have a lot more money than _I_ have.
But I also believe they are criminals by nature- they have threatened people (like Avie Tevanian) to try and suppress technologies that were better than what they had, they have acted like thugs and racketeers (the repeating theme of cutting off air supply- most recently with Washington lobbyists!) and they have intentionally lied to the highest courts in my country (the faked video deposition, not to mention half the arguments they make are at the least determined deception if not outright lying).
I am not a boot-stomping patriot type, but I am outright insulted at this last: I consider it treasonous and cannot help but consider that they are intentionally trying to destroy important parts of MY COUNTRY, such as it is, for their own gain. If Middle Eastern nationals tried to sabotage the processes of justice in this country we would declare war on them.
And you can't understand why I wouldn't take money from Microsoft? For my part, I cannot understand why you would. Are you that craven?
If you possess neither soul, guts nor morals, that's fine, but would you mind trying to remember that most people are more principles?
Now, let's have some of the nice randite posters moderate this down as flamebait- because, in fact, it is pretty scathing. I guess the "c'mon, you know you'd take their money if they were offering" was more insulting to me than I'd first realized.
Here at UMass, there's a course on Java (CS121, but that's mainly for CS majors with little to no programming experience). In addition, last year a semester-long seminar-type course was offered in "C++ for Java Programmers". The programming language gurus here (Professors Wileden and Moll) have each said at various times, whenever students ask about a particular language, "knowledge of any suffieciently advanced programming language allows you to quickly learn any other language that has a similar level of advancement. The languages that you learn here will probably be worthless by the time you graduate," or words to that effect.
I think this attitude towards programming languages is what separates good CS schools from not-good CS schools.
I attend Texas A&M University and in our courses that use C/++, we use Visual C++. The lab machines have Borland and the Unix machines have gcc, but the reason VC++ is used is the professors can get copies of Visual Studio for free for every student.
In addition to this, our school is in negotiations w/ MS to bring a licenseing plan to A&M to make copies of all MS OS's and Office to students for about $5 per copy. A plan like this is already in the works at U of Texas.
It's hard to get away from it when its getting shoved down your throat...
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zap.....
If i were a student and wanted to learn about operating systems, what does M$ have to offer me. Instead i'd get the Linux kernel and play. Who knows, a smart student that figures out a better way to do something, has an excellent shot at having it incorporated into the real thing.
Same goes for device drivers, if you are a student playing with a piece of hardware, are you going to create a device driver for nt? Not likely, linux, sure there is no barrier to entry.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
The interesting part is how preachy some of the profs get. The prof for my programming (C) class this semester went into a little speech on the first day about how Linux was far more technically advanced than windows and most anyone (except perhaps BSD fanatics ;-) would agree that linux is what should be used if you're doing something important.
Furthermore, one of the engineering profs one day got into a talk about how he runs VMWare in his machine which allows him to run linux, because linux is 'good.' (This was in a mathematical, not computers course, btw.) If we (students) tried to do some sort of major design project at my school using windows as the platform to run it, we would be fried to a crisp by the profs for it. This prof often talked about how he avoids MS products like the plague because of unreliability and bugs.
Yes, the conversion away from Microsoft has started, and the people to thank are the folks with the Ph.D's who get the idea that linux is better into students' heads, and choose linux as the platform for the course, thereby causing many students to install it on their own machines so they don't have to use the public labs to do their work. Yes, where I come from, linux has become both cool and elite among undergrads while microsoft OSs have become connected with cluelessness and a lack of technical competence.
I am sure that Microsoft's SIT (slashdot infiltration team) will read this and immediately alert the top brass about this grassroots subversion away from MS software, and try to initiate a whole new marketing campaing aimed at college/university students and well as Profs. It's only a matter of time...
I'm sure this will be lost in the shuffle and consumed by the abundance of posts - but here goes ...
There's a little thing called "Industry Standard". Whether it's the best way, the right way, the cheapest way, or the most effective way doesn't really mean dick when you hit the corporate level. They want the stuff that everybody else is using. Talking someone into using a new product that isn't very compatible with everyone else is rather difficult.
Example:
Quark Inc makes a layout program called QuarkXpress. It's the industry standard. It costs over $800. Adobe Systems Inc makes a competetive (some say better ) layout program called InDesign. It costs $700. The really big difference is that Adobe GIVES its software to design classes to be taught to the students, Quark requires the school to purchase their software.
This has been happening (PageMaker before InDesign) for about six years. Quark is still the industry standard and I don't see it changing for another year. Fortunately Quark screwed the pooch and didn't make Xpress native for OS X, and everyone is dumping them. It'll take time to filter through the entire graphic arts arena.
The same thing is going to happen with Microsoft. Their products are industry standard. They're going to have to make a MAJOR mistake before anyone else comes along to take the lead.
~LoudMusic
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
I got tired of M$ about a year ago, well truthfully before that, but we'll call it a year.
The thing that kept me using it for as long as I did, was the support for my sound, the cs4281, which was finally handled last year in a kernel update. Quite frankly, I love the switch. All our lower division programming projects are done in java here at OSU, so linux works just as well as windows. If they tell me I have to have codewarrior, I use gvim, it's as simple as that.
There was one more thing that kept me on windows for so long, the game engine, Half-Life. I used transgamming's winex to get it to work on RH 7.2, and it runs better than in winbloze.
I look at it this way, when I get a job doing real programming, I'm going to be using Unix/Solaris. In fact, both my intern jobs, where I did things with computers, went to Linux/Solaris. The fact that I had as much experince, with not only windows, linux, but also Macintosh made my work that much better.
My Macintosh experince has shown me that user design can make or break a product.
My Windows experince has shown ease of use of databases through odbc, and the importance of flat files.
My Unix/Linux/Solaris experince has shown me the power of using small programs to take on a big problem, thus making each part work together to complete a common goal.
I think all three are needed by any cs student, but as long as schools continue to cater to M$ products, such as requiring you use code warrior, or visual c++, I think they will stiffle what most cs students really need.
=================
Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
Beside from Linux I use WindowsNT and Office 2000. I will never upgrade from there. I don't want to get caught in Microsoft's activation hell. It is only going to get worst.
Chris Southern
I am about three years through CS and Math undergrad degree at a major Canadian university. And yes, we are being snowed under with MS Visual Studio, W2K, etc.
However, the question has to be asked - is it really going to affect Microsoft's fortunes? This dislike of MS products is hardly a new phenomenon - in my experience, people with a strong interest in computing have ALWAYS held Windows and other M$ products in low regard, and with good cause (they're flaky, limited, bloated, and irritating). However, Microsoft is not making its billions off the backs of computing science students or other demanding users - their target market is precisely that segment of the population that don't know or need any better. They aren't too concerned with how fully-featured the OS they use is, they use it because it's familiar, it's widely available, and it (sort of) performs the tasks they need. And seeing as most software development companies sort of enjoy getting a bit of remuneration for their efforts, as long as MS hangs onto the home market we are going to be stuck with wading through Microsoft garbage in an attempt to produce something for the home market.
Of course, one obvious counter-argument would be that the more developers get driven into the Linux camp, the more feature-rich/easy-to-use Linux will become, which *may* in turn cause Bobby-Joe Punchclock to try out this "new Linux thingy". I suppose to a certain degree this is already happening, but will it be enough to make a real difference?
Feel free to commence screaming about how much you like linux. =) Yes, I like it too... settle down.
I'm extremely lucky, my high school CS class taught us how to use Linux, host a web site, and more. We used networked Windows 98 machines and telnetted into the Linux box, and we got grades on changing our sigs, making web pages, using PINE, etc.
I got all my basic Linux experience from that class. Sadly, they've now switched the class to Win2000 only. But having gotten out of high school, I see how damned lucky I was that I actually got a high school class that taught Linux. My college doesn't even do that.
"...what students learn in school is key to what they go on to do."
Who made this fable up? When I went to school - yes it was a long time ago - everyone learned on a VAX or a Unix mainframe.... and we all (well - OK, most of us) went on to become M$ - based developers.
How many Windows hacks first computer at school was a Mac? Many!
That statement is groundless, and in my experience, false.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Good point :)
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