From the issue dated April 24, 1998

These articles received a 1999 award from the Education Writers Association. Microsoft's Reach in Higher Education Should higher education worry about Microsoft? The company that overwhelmingly dominates the market for computer operating systems is eager to dominate software sales to America's ALSO SEE: Microsoft Marketing Brings New Business and New Skeptics Corporate Largesse: Philanthropy or Self-Interest? Microsoft's Campus Brain Trust: $10,000 a Year for Providing 'Input' Microsoft Pays $200 for Mentioning Its Tools Funds and Freedom Make Microsoft Nirvana for Some Researchers Colleges Wonder if Microsoft Is Their Next Competitor Microsoft Headquarters Evokes Ambience of Campus, but 'It's Just an Office Park' What you said: Is Microsoft's growing role on college campuses helping or hurting higher education? Does Microsoft have too much influence in academe? Read the responses we received in Colloquy. colleges as well, with its Windows 95 operating system and Windows NT network-server software, its browsing, spreadsheet, and word-processing applications, even its own digital encyclopedia. The Microsoft Corporation is so eager to sell to colleges that it's making deals, giving software away, and luring campus computing experts with rich stipends -- all in the hope of persuading college officials that making Microsoft products the campus standard will save money and time. Many people in academe see no cause for alarm. Microsoft, they say, is merely doing what every red-blooded American company tries to do. And campus technology officials -- daunted by the challenge of providing more services at little or no additional cost -- are almost as hungry for the company's advice as they are for its products. But others see a darker side to the company's aims. Some fear that Microsoft is using its seemingly unlimited resources to create a monopoly in campus software sales, and that if it is not somehow checked, higher education could find itself beholden to the corporate masters of the very technologies that colleges and universities helped to create and popularize. Others, looking farther ahead, worry that the company's expanding reach will eventually lead it to compete with colleges by retailing educational programs of its own. Microsoft officials insist that they have no plans to become anything more than a "platform and tools" provider. The company's marketing booklets for colleges offer a reassuring quote from its chairman, Bill Gates: "We at Microsoft strongly believe that the single most important use of information technology is to improve education." In this special report, The Chronicle examines Microsoft's growing role on America's campuses: As the company moves to sell colleges on its comprehensive approach to software packaging, campus critics question some of its marketing tactics. Microsoft gives away millions of dollars in software, but its largesse has led to a debate over whether it is engaged in generous philanthropy or shrewd marketing. For $10,000 annual stipends, some of the leading experts on campus-computing issues provide advice to Microsoft. Microsoft pays some professors $200 each for mentioning or using the company's programming tools in their presentations. Microsoft is attracting top computer-science scholars to its basic-research arm by offering them unlimited funds and an open agenda. Microsoft's acquisition of intellectual property has some colleges wondering if the software giant will some day be competing with them directly, by offering courses. Is Microsoft's headquarters a campus or just an office park? http://chronicle.com Section: Information Technology Page: A25