Hi,
First of all, let me introduce myself. I'm Sriram Krishnan from SRM
Engineering College and I run the Chennai .NET Student User Group (so
you could call me a Microsoft guy :-) ). I'm quite familiar with
Microsoft's evangelization activities here in Chennai (especially those
in MCC and MIT), so I thought that I'd clear up a few misconceptions.
Let's start with MCC. Microsoft at that time(around 1 year ago)
had absolutely no relations with almost any college in India (except a
few IITs and Anna Univ). However, due to the single-handed efforts of
Kevin D'Souza from 3rd year MCA, Microsoft took an interest in the
student community here in Chennai. Don't think I'm exaggerating the
effect Kevin had...I was there when all this stuff happened. Microsoft
slowly started getting 'involved' with MCC. Microsoft does not want to
sell any of its products nor is it going to give away any free copies of
Windows. Instead, you had Janakiram, probably Microsoft's most famous
evangelist here in India do a session in MCC about .NET. Now, those of
you who attended the Bangalore Linux Conf last year might know Janakiram
well....for a Microsoft guy, he's a big Linux geek.
Now, if you think that during the session he cracked jokes about Linux
or degraded them in any other way, you are totally mistaken. What he did
show was his laptop running 3 different Linux distros using Microsoft
Virtual PC. Now, he showed how simple it was to create a web service in
.NET in Windows...and call it in Java in Linux. The people in the crowd
were absolutely blown away by the simplicity of the demo... Now, again,
he wasn't trying to prove that Windows was 'superior'...he was just
trying to get students interested in programming with .NET. I've spoken
with him personally about this and we agreed that Indian students are at
a disadvantage sometimes because of their lack of early exposure to
technology. Mind you..I said technology...not Windows or any other
Microsoft product.
As for the Microsoft activities in MIT, it is positive rubbish to say
that Microsoft has heard of the Linux activities and are therefore
taking steps. The truth is that there are quite a few students in MIT
(over 200 in fact) who want to get know more about Microsoft
technologies (.NET in particular) and were feeling stifled because they
didn't have easy access to either software or documentation. Now, one
single student again, Dinesh from 3rd year, convinced Microsoft to come
do sessions in his college and he has started a .NET Club in MIT which
has over 200 members now. Now, these 200 people had joined up even
before Microsoft had even thought of doing something for MIT. So you
have your facts dreadfully wrong there.
It is true that Microsoft provides a discount to academic institutions.
But I'm not sure how you see a problem with that...the way I see it,
everybody wins in the end. Microsoft gets more people to use their
products (after all, they are a company and they need to make
money)...and the students in these academic institutions benefit
tremendously because they get access to software which they simply
cannot get legally. When these students start looking for jobs, this
exposure to technology is going to benefit them tremendously. When
Microsoft sends its employees to do sessions at MIT, it inspires the
students over there to start coding...and it gives them an edge in their
careers. Are you grudging them this edge?
And I saw another message in this group saying that Microsoft was trying
to 'confuse' people by both letting students install software for free.
Now, what you're probably talking about is something called the
Microsoft Academic Alliance program of which my college, MIT are all a
part of. Basically, what happens is that the college pays a sum of money
to Microsoft and gets a MSDN subscription (basically all Microsoft
software for a year). Now, the college is allowed to install the
software in their labs...and they are allowed to give it to their
students but under some strict regulations. I know they're strict
because I've been trying to get my HOD to give me Windows 2003 for over
1 month now :-) Their goal again is to make sure that students get
access to the latest software without having to shell out large amounts
of money.
Now, I find this topic's timing ironic because my user group has a
meeting scheduled in MIT on 28th March (tommorrow). We're expecting an
audience of over 250-300...and we're going to be doing some fun stuff
with .NET with some famous industry professionals doing the talking. Its
gonna be at the New Lecture Hall Complex(opposite Admin block)...and you
are all invited to come and attend. Its totally free...so why don't you
drop in and get the other side of the story ? :-)
Regards,
Sriram Krishnan
P.S The original poster is also named K.Sriram...I found that kind of
ironic :-)
-----Original Message-----
From: ilugc-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ilugc-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Tom Jose Tharayil
Sent: 27 March 2004 00:17
To: metallica_tony@xxxxxxxxx
Cc: ilugc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Ilugc] Microsoft @ MIT * Warning*
Hi Sriram
Recently some guys from Microsoft came and showed the
demo of some of their products, here @ MIT. They also
started advertising that they will teach .NET course
for a very low fee. Also they r telling that they will provide CD's of
some of their latest products for students usage.
I think they might have heard of the linux based
activities going on @ MIT, and so ...
=====
##################################################
Personal email : metallica_tony@xxxxxxxxx
Official email : sriram@xxxxxxxxxx
[ Senior Developer @ Linare Tech ]
What I felt ,
What I have known ,
Never shined in thru what I have shown
---- Metallica.
