Microsoft will donate $1B in cloud services to nonprofits and universities

Post by bithive123 » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 1:18 AM UTC

tetrep wrote: post #7

Jedd wrote: post #4

Never entirely sure how to take some of these announcements. Prima facie it sounds great and laudable ... but I'm old, and my memory is full of stories of similar-sounding attempts to get youth mindshare with dubious subsidies of gear into schools, and the old classic of $100m to fund HIV research, $400m to fund ways to destroy GNU/Linux. [1] I know - people tell me - it's a whole new Microsoft these days. [1] http:/…

Indeed. Unless there's a promise of migration support once funs inevitably run out or some sort of lifetime fixed price/discount, such that the nonprofits or whatever can make an informed decision about the real cost of their infrastructure once it's no longer free, this is nothing but a terrible trap. I'd hate to see organizations suckered into this only to find that it has unsustainable costs once the freebies dry…

Post by jmspring » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 1:21 AM UTC

tetrep wrote: post #7

Jedd wrote: post #4

Never entirely sure how to take some of these announcements. Prima facie it sounds great and laudable ... but I'm old, and my memory is full of stories of similar-sounding attempts to get youth mindshare with dubious subsidies of gear into schools, and the old classic of $100m to fund HIV research, $400m to fund ways to destroy GNU/Linux. [1] I know - people tell me - it's a whole new Microsoft these days. [1] http:/…

Indeed. Unless there's a promise of migration support once funs inevitably run out or some sort of lifetime fixed price/discount, such that the nonprofits or whatever can make an informed decision about the real cost of their infrastructure once it's no longer free, this is nothing but a terrible trap. I'd hate to see organizations suckered into this only to find that it has unsustainable costs once the freebies dry…

Post by pasbesoin » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 1:23 AM UTC

Jedd wrote: post #4

Never entirely sure how to take some of these announcements. Prima facie it sounds great and laudable ... but I'm old, and my memory is full of stories of similar-sounding attempts to get youth mindshare with dubious subsidies of gear into schools, and the old classic of $100m to fund HIV research, $400m to fund ways to destroy GNU/Linux. [1] I know - people tell me - it's a whole new Microsoft these days. [1] http:/…

Post by sitkack » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 1:39 AM UTC

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #14

avar wrote: post #6

Between this and the ChakraCore news item on the front page I've been wondering whether Microsoft really has been changed its behavior since the 90s, or whether this is just how they play the game when they're not in a position of strength as they are with node.js and cloud services. It's pretty telling from the ChakraCore thread not entirely being "They're obviously trying to embrace, extend, extinguish node.js like…

> Sometimes I think I'm being too cynical Not at all. My very first thought was "this is just good old Microsoft, giving free stuff to schools to catch users early".

Post by x5n1 » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 1:48 AM UTC

sremani wrote: post #10

avar wrote: post #6

Between this and the ChakraCore news item on the front page I've been wondering whether Microsoft really has been changed its behavior since the 90s, or whether this is just how they play the game when they're not in a position of strength as they are with node.js and cloud services. It's pretty telling from the ChakraCore thread not entirely being "They're obviously trying to embrace, extend, extinguish node.js like…

Posts like this remind me of the quote in N.N.Taleb's Antifragile book, The mind fights yesterday's war, but the body fights tomorrow's war (in the context of biological systems under stress). Some minds here are fighting a decade old war and no good deed goes unpunished in HN comments.