Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Attempts to Woo Students With 'Crowdsourced' Laptops
theodp writes "Q. What do Chris Brown and Steve Ballmer have in common? A. They both want you to Beg for It. GeekWire reports that Microsoft is touting its new Chip In program, a crowdfunding platform that allows students to 'beg' for select Windows 8 PCs and tablets that they can't afford on their own. Blair Hanley Frank explains, 'Students go to the Chip In website and choose one of the 20 computers and tablets that have been pre-selected by Microsoft. Microsoft chips in 10% of the price right off the bat, and then students are given a link to a "giving page" to send out to anyone they think might give them money. Once their computer is fully funded, Microsoft ships it to them.' Hey, what could go wrong?"
Can we just beg for them to:
Remove Windows 8 from a laptop we already bought
Make Windows 8 and 8.1 (so basically 8.2) not suck so badly
or just beg for them to stop begging us to beg them for Windows 8 machines.
Who in their right minds wants a Windows 8 laptop ?
I'd rather have a damp pizza.
So it's a 10% discount for spamming your contact list
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
This almost reminds me of all those e-mails from way back when that say if you forward the e-mail to 10 or so friends, Bill Gates will send you a free PC. I'm already very suspect of any e-mail asking for money, even if it is from someone I know.
You could end up with a laptop with Windows 8 on it.
...but it really doesn't help when this kind of project tries to get people to turn it into spam. Want to drive your early 1980s Vanagon through China on the Silk Road, and write a book about the experience? Good project for crowdsourcing (but didn't make its kickstarter goal). Want to record an album with your band or film a documentary on something super-nerdy? By all means give it a shot.
Poor student wanting to buy a device Microsoft picked for you? Just makes the whole concept of crowdsourcing look like what it is: begging. The appeal of crowdsourcing, in my opinion, is that if the project succeeds, something fun, interesting, or exciting gets brought back that the people who helped it happen get to enjoy. Not just the person who gathered the funds.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
1. microsoft already enjoys lock-in at most universities and private colleges. shit like outlook and sharepoint has unfortunately shoved years of well-maintained unix to the roadside in an effort for universities to seem more cutting edge. protracted multi-month outages (ahem, University of Kentucky) requiring expensive consultants drive alongside patch tuesday now in the race to time best wasted.
2. 90% of the engineering labs, the ones we slashdotters fondly pine for, are sadly Microsft lock stock and barrel. each desltop basically exists as a $500 PuTTY workstation.
id be willing to guess microsoft is trying to reduce the amount of apple on campus. in the arm and in the backpack of millions of students rests the most egregious chunk of the student loan, the macbook. Microsoft wants that few inches of space so badly they can taste the sweat off steves greasy forehead, but theyve failed catastrophically in the past and if history is any indicator, this will just serve to ever cement microsoft as the spreadsheet king. the Zune was a godless abortion, the netbook was an underpowered way to piss off university hackers, and the tablets are about the only thing left until you realize apple has been doing it better for years. Now we're going for the laptops...and its worth noting most $college macbooks run XP or 7 so as to comply with university requirements for courseware. Make no mistake however, they roll back over to mac whenever theres a party and someone needs to fire up a jukebox playlist fitting for kegstands.
making college kids beg wont work. at the end of the day sure, theyre accustomed to it with their parents but microsoft doesnt represent anything they inherently need that they cant already download off bittorrent or use a lab for. victory has defeated you microsoft, your ubiquity is the titration point at which college students simply dont care about your products. they all know windows, they all use it, but there is no fundamental 'want' or drive you can possibly conjure up that will spur kids to fall to their knees the way steve jobs could get them to.
Good people go to bed earlier.