Microsoft and Community Colleges

["Jeffrey C. Ollie" <jeff@ollie.clive.ia.us>]

  There has been some discussion as to why many community colleges use
  Microsoft products.  As an employee of a community college (but not as
  any sort of official spokesperson) I'd like to offer my perspective.
  
  The educational programs offered by community colleges tend to be very
  practical in nature, and are often very strongly influenced by industry
  needs.  I'm sure that you can find examples where entire programs are
  created because one local industry or another had some need.
  
  Since the business world uses primarily Microsoft products, they want to
  hire people that already have experience in those products and they want
  to send people to training classes on Microsoft products.  The reverse
  is true as well - since businesses hire people with experience on
  Microsoft products, that's what businesses tend to buy.
  
  That's why community colleges use Microsoft products.  The computer
  staff here (I'm one of them) don't necessarily prefer Microsoft.  We
  just don't have any other realistic options.
  
  As an aside, we do use other platforms where that makes sense - for
  example we have a lab full of Macintosh systems for teaching Photoshop
  and other applications used in the graphics industry.
  
  Jeff