Re: Microsoft at Columbia University

[Declan McCullagh <declan@pathfinder.com>]

  I don't want to ruin the party here, but what's wrong with using
  non-Microsoft applications? If you need a word processor, WriteNow,
  WordPerfect, Nisus are all good products. Perhaps it's time to educate
  management.
  
  BTW, I just came from the Appraising Microsoft conference. It was a
  snoozer. (Sorry, Ralph.) By the second set of speakers a bunch of
  journalists had gathered in the hallway to set plans for tonight. Maybe
  tomorrow will be better.
  
  I wrote something about it today at http://pathfinder.com/netly/
  
  -Declan
  
  
  At 13:42 -0500 11/13/97, Louis Proyect wrote:
  >Just had an interesting chat with the techie in charge of microcomputer
  >support at Columbia. I was having problems printing because the Microsoft
  >network client doesn't work properly when there is heavy traffic. He
  >disabled it and I am using the Novell client instead.
  >
  >He says that the new pricing schedule that MS has instituted for
  >educational institutions represents a major hit. He also said that he
  >despises MS software himself and tries to avoid it at all costs. He says
  >that Microsoft Office installations fail 30% of the time, a shockingly high
  >incident rate.
  >
  >By the way, speaking of Microsoft applications, is it just me or is there
  >something really messed up with the way that the mouse functions on
  >high-powered pc's using WIN95 in at least two respects:
  >
  >1) when you insert the cursor in the middle of a sentence, it will often
  >highlight the entire sentence when this is not intended.
  >
  >2) when you scroll forward using the mouse from one page to the next, you
  >lose control over the speed of the scrolling and you shoot forward to the
  >end of the document.
  >
  >If I released custom-written software to my users at Columbia that was this
  >missed up, I would lose my job. Meanwhile, MS makes billions. Something's
  >wrong here.
  >
  >Louis Proyect