No subject

less than thrilled with this deal:

http://www.dailynebraskan.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2002/09/19/3d893c2e14a46?in_archive=1

William Ward wrote:
> 
> All the more reason to press the administration with the other costs
> associated with this infrastructure:
> 
> 1.  Support fees to MS.
> 2.  Expensive third-party software.
> 3.  Insecure and low-quality code.
> 4.  Hardware costs and upgrade cycles.
> 5.  Computer software auditing overhead, because you KNOW they'll be
> back to make sure you bought everything they demanded.
> 
> Bill
> 
> On Sunday, September 29, 2002, at 06:12 PM, Matt Matthews wrote:
> 
> > On Sun, Sep 29, 2002 at 05:46:22PM -0400, Jon Carnes wrote:
> >> Microsoft has made a deal with University of Nebraska and is looking
> >> to
> >> extend that to other Universities. The university pays a big lump sum
> >> for a licensing contract and then all the students can purchase
> >> Microsoft products at Employee prices: WinXP OS for $4.99, Office for
> >> $9.99, ...
> >
> > Why isn't this considered "dumping" product onto the market at
> > abnormally low
> > prices? I thought that in certain circumstances this was illegal.
> > Furthermore,
> > I would think that an established (by the courts) monopoly would be
> > subject of
> > even more stringent rules of conduct in the marketplace that would
> > prevent
> > this.
> >
> > I saw this story yesterday, and it made me angry. I realize that this
> > effectively does what some have said would have to happen eventually
> > due to
> > market pressures (lower costs of the OS and apps to 'reasonable'
> > levels) but
> > this seems to be going too far that way: dropping the price to flush
> > the
> > market of competitors, both free and non-free. Is it good for the
> > consumer?
> > Short-sightedly, yes, it is because they get stuff they "need" for low
> > prices;
> > but in the long-term this entrenches an established, unhealthy
> > monopoly even
> > more.
> >
> > Regards,
> > matt
> >
> > --
> > Matt Matthews     \ ph: 919.660.2811        \ Use GNU/Linux  _o) w00t
> > Duke Univ., Postdoc\ jvmatthe at math.duke.edu  \____________   /\\
> > Dept. of Mathematics\ http://www.math.duke.edu/~jvmatthe/ \ _\_V
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Janyne Kizer
CNE-3, CNE-4, CNE-5
Systems Programmer Administrator
NC State University, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences
Extension Information Technology