COLLOQUY

Monopolies are bad for consumer value and choice. Period.

In the long run, how could extending Microsoft's virtual monopoly in most other areas of computing to the academic arena be beneficial to educational institutions?

Eventually, they will be subject to the whims of a new software Standard Oil, which (as a basic monopolistic tendency) will offer less value and innovation for their dollar.

Wait, you say: What about Apple Computer's high level of adoption in academe in years past? The difference here is that neither Apple or any other company has had such a high level of infiltration into business, home and other markets to leverage standardization in academic institutions... and make sure it stays the standard.

Is there any alternative, though? Students need to be educated in the tools of today's industry, and that means Windows. Precisely the point many IS managers realise, and thus the academic migration to Microsoft. What is less well known, however, is that education on almost any GUI platform is equivalent; skills are not only easily transferrable, but students gain valuable knowledge in OS interoperability, and technical flexibility. IS managers may think that making the leap from a MacOS environment to Windows 95 may be too much of a hassle for students (and so why not use Windows in both the workplace and education in the first place?), but they rarely think that of switching labs from Windows 3.1 to NT. Are the two jumps much different?

-- A Blair, Student, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Carleton University (posted 4/21, 5:59 p.m., E.D.T.)

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