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Stop CETI! Action Alert
The Micro$oft Monitor
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Published by NetAction Issue No. 20 Dec. 9, 1997
Repost where appropriate. Copyright and subscription info at end of message.
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In This Issue:
Action Alert: Stop CETI!
About the Micro$oft Monitor
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NETACTION ACTION ALERT
For more info, send email to: stopceti@netaction.org
<http://www.netaction.org>.
MICROSOFT AND CORPORATE ALLIES WANT TO CONTROL CALIFORNIA STATE
UNIVERSITY'S TECHNOLOGY SYSTEM
-- CETI plan will set up a for-profit corporation with $3.12 billion
in projected revenue
In an unprecedented grab to privatize technology at a public
university, the California State University (CSU) system is moving to
hand control of its inter-campus computer and telecommunications
system to a private consortia managed by Microsoft and its hardware
allies, GTE, Hughes and Fujitsu.
The proposed consortia, called the California Education Technology
Initiative (CETI), will be a for-profit partnership expected to
generate over $3.12 billion in revenues over the next ten years,
largely by creating a captive market for technology purchases by an
estimated half million students, faculty and staff annually.
For more information on the CETI plan, see:
<http://www.cob.sjsu.edu/sip_ceti/>.
HELP STOP THIS CORPORATE GRAB OF TECHNOLOGY AT A PUBLIC UNIVERSITY!
Hearings are scheduled in the state Assembly on January 6, 1998. Send
a fax to the leadership of the Assembly's Higher Education Committee
and Education Budget Committee.
NetAction has set up an automatic fax server at:
<http://www.netaction.org/fax/faxform.html>
You can also contact the chairmen of these committees on your own to make your
concerns heard:
Assembly Higher Education Chairman Ted Lempert
916-445-7632 (phone) 916-324-6974 (fax)
Assembly Education Budget Chairman Jack Scott
916-445-8211 (phone) 916-323-9420 (fax)
We also urge you to call the leadership of the state Senate committees
responsible for higher education:
Senate Education Budget Chairman Jack O'Connell 916-445-5405
Senate Education Committee Chairman Leroy Greene 916-445-7807
While email is less effective, you can send messages to:
Ted Lempert <mailto:Ted.Lempert@assembly.ca.gov>
Jack Scott <mailto:Jack.Scott@assembly.ca.gov >
Jack O'Connell <mailto:Senator.OConnell@sen.ca.gov>
Leroy Green <mailto:Senator.Greene@sen.ca.gov>
NetAction is asking the state Legislature to block the CETI proposal
and establish a computer and telecommunications policy for the state
university system based on the following principles:
1. There should be no corporate management of educational
institutions by companies with a direct financial interest in the
products purchased by the campuses or students.
2. Any outside management support should be committed to training
students in a diversity of technologies and be committed to supporting
open computer standards across the board.
3. Any proposal must include an explicit commitment to full and equal
access to technology on campus regardless of economic ability to pay.
4. Educational curriculum should be designed by educators dedicated
to the long-term interests of their students, not corporations looking
to lock in "customers" to proprietary software.
5. No proposal should be approved without a thorough analysis of its
possible impact on technology standards and monopolies outside the
university.
To add your organization's endorsement to NetAction's StopCETI!
campaign, please send your organization's name and contact info to:
stopceti@netaction.org
BACKGROUND
NetAction, along with staff, faculty and students across the state,
are opposing the CETI proposal as an undemocratic and disastrous
corporate takeover of technology at a public university.
1. CETI locks campuses into proprietary technology. This ill-serves
education which should be based on open access to a range of
technology.
2. CETI is a dangerous commercialization of the University that will
cost students, staff and faculty over the long-run and threatens to
increase inequality between richer and poorer students.
3. Given the size and importance of the California State University
system, CETI's monopoly nature will give Microsoft a massive strategic
advantage in its ongoing effort to monopolize global software and
Internet standards.
The California State University (CSU) will serve over 500,000 students
annually in its 22 campus system within ten years. Microsoft and its
corporate partners intend to use that captive market and the
endorsement of the CSU system to market products from the enterprise
to CSU students, faculty and alumni and sell its products to
university and business organizations across the country. The
Business Plan for CETI explicitly notes that "the education market is
a strategically important market for each of the partners," marking
the corporate advantage they will each gain over competitors through
the CETI contract.
For Microsoft, control of the central servers and software standards
for the largest university system in the country will give it an
unprecedented opportunity to expand its control of computing
standards. Microsoft's monopoly goals are clear in the CETI's plan's
statement. The proposal states that:
"The software recommendation is for the operating system to be Windows
NT and general applications to utilize the Microsoft Office suite of
products. Microsoft Exchange is the recommended server solution.
Microsoft has indicated that Windows NT will become the standard
operating system in the near future. We propose supporting Windows95,
it's successor and WindowsNT...Eventually, we expect to only be
supporting WindowsNT as our primary operating system."
By supporting only Microsoft's spreadsheets, databases and word
processors, Microsoft will make sure that the only integrated approach to
computing on campuses with technical support will be through Microsoft
products.
This means that the future engineers, programmers and clerical staff
of California graduating from the California State University system
will have been trained in a Microsoft-only environment. The state of
California should not be turning its university system into the
private training program for Microsoft.
The CETI proposal is being sold on the promise of $365 million in
infrastructure investments over ten years by the corporate partners
involved. Because the state of California is unwilling to spend those
funds itself, they are handing a monopoly to these corporations worth
many times that amount. The "self-funding" of the CETI proposal is
largely based on locking students, faculty and staff into monopoly
product purchases from the consortia, and locking out alternative
purchasing options. Additionally, the plan calls for commercial
advertising on campus computer systems to pay for the system, an
unacceptable commercialization of the education environment.
The proposal is also a danger to equal access to technology among
students. The CETI proposal gives these corporations control of
technology decisions about marketing a range of services to students
that would have once been considered part of tuition at the
University. We can expect economic stratification between haves and
have-nots within the University as some students can afford these
"enhanced" services and others are left out.
This proposal for Microsoft and its allies to administer technology
implementation at the CSU system, including developing classroom
curriculum and training programs for students and staff, comes in the
context of the ongoing privatization of technical education in the
country. The lack of public funding for technical education and its
ongoing privatization has allowed Microsoft to attain an
anti-competitive control of technical training in the United States.
This has allowed Microsoft to shape that education in ways that serve
its individual corporate interests rather than the public good of open
computing standards. See NetAction's own White Paper on Microsoft's
overall monopoly strategy at http://www.netaction.org/msoft/world/
Already, Microsoft-approved curriculum taught by Microsoft-approved
instructors and audited by the Microsoft Corporation is taught at over
300 college campuses across the country, including over 30 campuses in
California. These Microsoft "Authorized Academic Training Program"
participants are pulled into the Microsoft orbit through offers of
free software and training for technical programs left underfunded by
state governments and therefore vulnerable to Microsoft's corporate
bribery.
Looked at comprehensively, Microsoft is using its involvement in
technical education and infrastructure to further reinforce its
control of computing. It is an unfortunate fact that our country's
whole system of technical education is being distorted as it becomes
one more tool for Microsoft's monopolistic goals.
The danger is that as Microsoft controls education training, it
controls the "mind share" of the potential workforce for technology
companies across the country. In its ongoing campaign to control
Internet standards and electronic commerce, Microsoft will use the
CETI proposal to further its increasing monopoly control of technology
development in this country.
For more info, contact Nathan Newman, NetAction Project Director, at:
Phone: (510) 452-1820
E-mail: stopceti@netaction.org
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About The Micro$oft Monitor
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the Consumer Choice Campaign <http://www.netaction.org/msoft/ccc.html>.
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