COLLOQUY

Some of our vice-presidents have bought the propaganda that we need to support only one platform. The facts actually show that an all windows environment is more costly to maintain than an all Mac environment. The problem with this approach in higher education is simple. Future educators need to be prepared to use what schools have. A lot of schools have Macs.

If the VP's get their way, then future teachers won't have any familiarity with other OS's. Also, in the graphics, and media occupations the Macintosh is the standard. If higher education were to force Macs into the business world, they would claim be upset because it wouldn't be a true representation of the real business world.

What many people don't realize is that in some areas of education (especially the arts) the windows platform is not the better choice. The business world has no need for MIDI, video capture, graphic design etc. They consider these things as unneeded extras... toys. Well I think they are dead wrong!

A keyboarding class, or a word processing lab doesn't need any such things (yet)... so, sure buy all Windows machines... but don't force a platform not meant to handle graphics, music, and video on teachers of the arts.

The Mac is the industry standard in publishing, music, and video for a reason. Think about it before you contribute to the world's first computer OS holocaust... and consider that all Microsoft really cares about is money.

It's ironic that Apple has lost a lot of money because of their principles. They refused to allow third party developers to taint their plug and play. They refuse to lower their standards to offer cheaper products that won't outlast their Intel/Windows counterparts, etc. The good guy doesn't always win, but at least in this case I think I know who the good guy is.

-- Alan Davis, Graduate Student, Educational Technology @ SMSU (posted 4/21, 5:56 p.m., E.D.T.)

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