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Gates Donates $15M to Preserve Computing History
Dan-DAFC writes "The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is donating the sum of $15 million to the Computer History Museum in California, according to the BBC. The money is the biggest single gift in the museum's $125 million fund-raising campaign, which is still $50 million short of its target. The funds raised will be used to add more exhibits and educational programs."
Honestly, this is asinine. While you personally might disagree (as many do) with some of Microsoft's business practices through the year, at the same time, one must honestly be impressed with what they've managed to accomplish. Making computing ubiquitous, and easy to understand-- these aren't things to be taken lightly. Yes, things crash, and yes, he stole some things, but I think that most /.ers wouldn't be here if they hadn't been introduced to computers at some point; most people are introduced to computing through Windows. And maybe yes, we move on to bigger and better things, but at the same time, it's nice to have a computer I'd give my grandmother.
Big PR stunts? Gates has been giving money for *years* (at least as far back as 1997) to charitable organziations. He's also personally responsible for the gates foundation. MS, and gates in particular has been quite generous. Much more so than other silicon valley tech companies. In fact, i recently tried to find information on charitable giving done by steve jobs or apple but to no avail. It seems that they collected some money for the red cross in the wake of katrina but i didn't find any actual donations from apple. How generous of them to off "free" advertising space.
You know, I hate Microsoft just as much as (if not more than!) you, but until you donate anywhere near that amount, shut the fuck up.
Target Audience goes to this museum?
I think not. The visitors to this museum are hardcore computer geeks that are already well aware of their choices and are likely not going to dump their current setups for Microsoft's latest and greatest based on their experiences at this museum.
Microsoft's target audience is corporate executives and average consumers, not enthusiasts