Stardate 20011120.2233 (On Screen): Well, in addition to a massive antitrust suit filed by the US Government, there were also a series of class action lawsuits filed on behalf of individual users of Microsoft operating systems which were combined into a single suit. Now that appears to have been settled. One of the problems with the settlement was that the quantity of money which would have been involved would have been less than what would have to have been spent in order to find all the parties in the class -- which means they'd get nothing at all. Rather than waste the money that way, someone came up with the idea of making Microsoft give the money to schools.
Which sounds good, until you take a look at the details. Actually, it is good, but it hurts Microsoft very little. Part of what they'll be giving away is software, but their contribution will be rated based on sales value rather than on manufacturing cost, and for Microsoft the value-to-cost ratio is particularly high. (All software costs less than $25 to manufacture, irrespective of its commercial price.) So right there that devalues the burden. Much of the rest of what they'll be giving is used computers, which they've already depreciated; they've already gotten their money's worth from that hardware and would have junked it anyway, so the effective cost to them for that is negligible. (Corporations like Microsoft routinely replace desktop computers every couple of years.) And all of this will be tax deductible as a charitable contribution. Once you work it all out, this "$500 million" ain't gonna cost Microsoft even remotely that much money. It's not obvious it's even going to cost them $50 million, when all's said and done; the rest will be funny money and tax subsidies.
And what better place to send it all than to schools? It will displace Apple and perhaps finally kill the influence of the Mac there; it will expose more students to Microsoft products and get them comfortable with Windows and Office and PCs, which will make them be more likely to buy and use such products later. My opinion is that in the long run, Microsoft is actually going to make a profit off this. I can just see Microsoft's lawyers pleading, "Please, don't throw us into the school briar-patch!" (discuss)
