Are Colleges Helping to Maintain the Microsoft Monopoly?

lexus99 asks: "Recently, while attending college and wanting to take tests in order to avoid taking basic computer courses, I have signed up for a few SAM (Skills Assessment Manager) tests. What really surprised me is that these tests are entirely based upon Microsoft products (Windows XP and Office XP). Note that this course is -required- before taking any any of the more advanced courses. Is this not a clear cut case of U.S. Colleges forcing its students to exclusively use Microsoft's software? Does Microsoft pay for this 'privledge', or do the schools get some type of M$ discounts? I don't believe that I will have any problem passing these tests, as I frequently use M$ software in my workplace, but I cannot help but feel insulted that I have to take them in order to take more advanced UNIX courses." This issue is a lot more complex than it sounds. Many colleges fall into Microsoft's software because they do get decent volume discounts and Microsoft provides them with decent service, so why change what works? However, with the new licensing schemes that Microsoft is beginning to push, maybe we'll see some change in this area in the near future. Have any of you seen evidence of Microsoft worming it's way into your college courses?

Comments

Unix too

[ClosedSource]

Universities have been promoting Unix for many years and prior to Linux were probably the single most important factor keeping it alive.

Just as Unix and its derivatives have played a prominent role in industry on the server, MS OS's obviously have played a prominent role on the desktop. If a university wants to prepare students for the real world, it needs to include all the most important OS's, languages, etc. Instructors should point out the strengths and weaknesses of each and let the students draw their own conclusions.

Re:Graphics @ ASU

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Any "Educator" who teaches a programming classes and requires a specific compiler is an incompetent idiot and you should not believe a word he says.

I'm not sure I care for your tone, and I certainly don't agree with what you have to say.

Can we agree, for sake of discussion, that it's impossible to teach a programming language without letting the students get in there and program with it? I mean, you can read K&R from start to finish as many times as you like, but you need practical experience writing programs, screwing them up, and fixing them to really understand the language.

So in order to learn, students have to program. And, obviously, their efforts have to be evaluated by the teacher, right? So it's not just a student sitting at his desk writing programs, and compiling and running them, all by himself. There's a feedback loop, and the teacher is an important part of it.

Students in an introductory class are there to learn a language, or an API, or a set of basic concepts. They're not there to learn how to use a particular editor, or compiler, or debugger. The tools they need to use are just... necessary evils, I guess. You can't compile without a compiler, but using the compiler is secondary to your purpose. So the tools-- the editor, compiler, debugger-- should get in the way as little as possible. If you're thinking about how to use the tool, you're not thinking about what you're really there to learn.

The same goes for the teacher. Nobody can be expert in every editor, every compiler, every debugger. If a student has a problem with one of his tools, the teacher needs to be able to get in there, solve the problem quickly, and get the student back on track. In order to do that, the teacher needs to be an expert on the tools used by the students, so he can spend as little time on them as possible.

You see, I think I disagree with you completely. A teacher is responsible for creating an environment in which students can learn what they came to learn, and a good teacher will do what it takes to make that happen. If that means telling the students to write their programs with Visual C++, then good for him.

So, in conclusion, I think the truth is almost the complete opposite of what you said. I think any educator who teaches a programming class and doesn't require each student to use the same compiler and platform probably isn't making a good enough effort to keep the students focused on the material at hand.

Re:Graphics @ mah.se

[DarkVein]

I'll not dwell too long on this; Your analogy to Esperanto is flawed. Mozilla speak's the Queen's HTML/CSS/DOM/etc, while IE speaks a slang popularlized by MTV & friends. Those who understand the slang might not understand all your fancy words or be confused when you respond positively to a double negative, but you're speaking pure English.

I see you don't claim to be a web designer. A casual speaker of English wouldn't care at the misuse of a semicolon. A professional writer wishing to write to a casual audience might curse that he can't convey the exact meaning a semicolon would bring, because the causal audience wouldn't pick up on it. So he curses and writes longer sentences that everyone will grasp.

Web designers writing for the causal, apathetic, audience have to write so that IE understands. IE is the 7th-grade English level that novels need to be written for. IE doesn't understand what a comma splice is, but it understands "UR K-KOOL DUDE", even though "UR" should be "U R".

I see many pages that IE renders blatantly wrongly, but then, like most web designers, I've usually written those pages: The next 75% of my job is getting IE to display it the way my other 7-10 browsers do. Successful web designs are done this way because it is impossible to start with an IE-specific design and go to a design everyone can use.

Your last paragraph is curious. The standards are set, and people build implimentations off those standards. Because I impliment the standard in a sub-par way, but I market well, should the quality of the standard be lowered and invalidate the work of dozens of higher quality projects?

It has been a long time since I saw a web site Mozilla does not render properly, by the way. css/edge is one I usually point out when arguing for standards acceptance. These designs are beautiful and elegant, but fail in IE and old versions of Opera. These are simple things. This copy of the OGF's SRD demonstrates one of the simpler things IE just can't grasp.

Anyhow, I understand your run-with-mob perspective, but I don't believe it can apply rationally in this case. It's a quick step to communication lockdown if we allow our method of communication to be controlled entirely by a single corporate entity, whoever the hell they are.

Re:Graphics @ ASU

[critic666]

Well, you shouldn't teach to a product, but when it comes time to do the assignment, and there are only 1 or 2 TAs, busy with their own classes/research, it's far easier to grade upwards of 100 assignments if you don't have to try and find 7 types of computers/compilers to grade.

At Northwestern, we alternate between needing Visual Studio and Linux, and I personally do all my dev on OS X and then take an hour to make sure it runs on whatever platform I need. It's worked fine the past 3 years :)

Josh