COLLOQUY Responses
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COLLOQUY Responses
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 Microsoft has perfected the art of public beta testing (virtually any version of any of their software products numbered less than 3), and has persuaded the public to pay handsomely for the privilege. Their consistent behavior in this regard has, in the opinion of some pundits, begun to resemble fraudulent misrepresentation of product qualities. Using enormous ad budgets, "stipends," and "grants" (amidst public allegations of "payoffs," as similar behaviors were labeled in another time), Microsoft has trained MIS professionals, educators, and the media that to criticize Microsoft is an extremely dumb career move. Do so publicly, and one pays a heavy professional price. Today's essay, "Microsoft's Reach in Higher Education," is a welcome rebuttal to this trend. Recently, Mike Elgan, editor of Windows Magazine, wrote an essay decrying the unstable "bloatware" that Windows has become. Mr. Elgan's essay raises real questions about the choices made by consultants (and MIS professionals generally), and their fiduciary responsibility to recommend the most effective solutions for their clients. The costs posed to schools that adopt WinNT, indeed "win-anything", will be astronomical. Apple II machines are still in use at schools nation-wide for a real reason: the lack of money with which to replace them. Rhapsody (scheduled for release by Apple later this year) is a Unix-based operating system that incorporates the stability, ease of use, and reliability of MacOS 8.x (MacOS 8.x is, by all accounts, an award-winning operating system). Current developer releases of Rhapsody indicate it will behave as promised, and deliver an extraordinarily powerful server-class OS that will run on various hardware platforms, including Intel. If I, as the client, hear of a solution for my business (Apple machines running MacOS and Rhapsody, or Intel/Alpha machines running Rhapsody) that will save me 10, 25, or higher percentages of my five- or six-figure yearly MIS support costs and my consultants chose to misrepresent the facts about the effectiveness of that solution, I'd haul 'em into court so fast you'd hear 'em whinnying all the way up to Nyack, New Yawk (where the rich folk live). It's called breach of fiduciary duty, and professionals like accountants, attorneys, and yes, even school boards, get sued all the time for doing it. If I, as the consultant, recommend a solution for a client (Apple machines running MacOS and Rhapsody, or Intel/Alpha machines running Rhapsody) that will save the client 10, 25, or higher percentages of their five- or six-figure yearly MIS support costs and my client rejects that solution, it's probably best that we not work together: I don't suffer fools gladly. Note, too, that we don't recommend MacOS machines blindly, but WinTel machines are rarely the most effective solution for a particular need; when they are the most appropriate, we recommend 'em, and we bow out of the picture just as gracefully as we can... "Not suffering fools gladly" doesn't do a whole hell of a lot for one's standard of living at times, but it sure makes it easier to look in the mirror. Both today's article in the Chronicle of Higher Education and Mr. Elgan's article captured a great many of our reasons for choosing not to support a buggy, unreliable operating system: I find it extremely difficult to hand someone a bill for $1,200 to install an ethernet card in their $999 "do-everything, multi-media capable" WinTel box. Hardware and software incompatibilities within the WinTel world are the stuff of legend, whereas the MacOS is renowned for its easy upgrade-ability and compatibility. Sure, some incompatibilities exist, but it doesn't take an encyclopedia for the average user to track them and resolve them. Some corporation's legal department will soon get fed up with the unrealistic, unrealizable promises made by one of the carbon-copy WinTel consulting firms, and they'll sue Microsoft and the hardware vendors for selling them unreliable trash that incurs ongoing, extraordinary support costs in an enormous class action lawsuit on behalf of all defrauded consumers, businesses, and if trends continue, school districts. How do you think the Y2K problem is going to play in Peoria? Sure, professionals know that all the enterprise-class OS's are involved, but America loves to assign blame, and there is no more visible person to blame than Bill Gates when the economy crashes in the days and weeks after the proverbial mess hits the proverbial fan. And if you think this is all just "sour grapes" from a Mac-first, Mac-only consulting firm, think again: If recent trends continue, and school districts adopt WinTel technology on a wide scale, the drain on the taxpayers' budgets will make the Great Savings & Loan Robbery by R. Reagan and his cronies look like a dime store stick-up job (funny, isn't it, how no one talks about the S & L Robbery these days ...). Think of these ideas the next time you read about WinTel and "technology in the schools" -- then write to your school board and, even better: attend their meetings.
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