Forgive me but I can't help but suspect that Microsoft is only offering these cloud services to nonprofits and universities because they are a front for the NSA. Microsoft has had a long dirty history of being in bed with the NSA and their latest "free" operating system Windows 10 is nothing more than another mechanism for the NSA to master the human domain by controlling and tracking everything we do on their operating system.
Microsoft will donate $1B in cloud services to nonprofits and universities
51–60 of 78 posts
Re: Microsoft will donate $1B in cloud services to nonprofits and universities
#52Seeing what Microsoft has done recently with privacy on their newest operating system, I would not have high hopes for their cloud services. Of course the organizations should be weighing all the pros and cons but I share the sentiment that once the freebie well dries up, terms might be re-evalutaed or services held hostage. Also, and I know the OneDrive plan shakeup fiasco is not apples to apples[0], but I'm sure these free plans could suffer a similar fate. With this, it's not necessarily as easy as moving mom's photo album back to your desktop.
I know the Univeristy of Wisconsin used to roll its own email, but recently started using Outlook acounts for everything and I'm definitely not a fan. Migration was painful or it at least seemed so. If orgs are able to isolate their architecture from the cloud and services, it might work out. Unfortunately, a lot of companies and organizations treat aggregate privacy like a preference instead of a requirement. Bartering chips.
My cynicism may be unfounded, but a company by the same name helped write the book on fostering lock-in not too long ago.
[0] http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/3/9662414/microsoft-reduces-...
Re: Microsoft will donate $1B in cloud services to nonprofits and universities
#53So without knowing more details, without some special effort on the nonprofits side, I'm guessing this will lock them into an Azure architecture. That could be OK if MS continues the donations after the initial $1B runs out, otherwise it could end up costing the nonprofits/.edu's more in the long run than if they went with a more open path now.
You can use only open source software in Azure if you like. I don't really understand your complaint. You could even migrate your VMs elsewhere.
Re: Microsoft will donate $1B in cloud services to nonprofits and universities
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
What? I've literally never seen anyone say anything negative about Bill's charity work. Can you cite some sources for that? Microsoft "charity" however will allways be suspicious because how ridiculosly backhanded they were during their era of monopoly. Whether its justified or not remains to be seen.
Here's a few examples: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2457760 "arguably more bad than good being done"
You can find a single person on some forum on the internet who is against anything. That's hardly a furor.
I don't think there is any substantial negativity associated with Gate's charity work. The closest you'll find is some in the educational space who don't agree with the metrics his foundation uses to measure progress.
Re: Microsoft will donate $1B in cloud services to nonprofits and universities
#55Never 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:/…
They do a lot of things like most big companies, and some people seem to concentrate only the bad. For example, they started funding OpenSSL and other core infrastructure[1] projects of the Linux foundation after the Heartbleed fiasco. But you don't find that kind of news on here. By the way "$400m to fund ways to destroy GNU/Linux" seems to be quite hyperbolic, especially coming from 'The Register'. The link in the…
For example, they started funding OpenSSL and other core infrastructure projects of the Linux foundation after the Heartbleed fiasco. But you don't find that kind of news on here.
Actually, you do: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7639707 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7639835
Re: Microsoft will donate $1B in cloud services to nonprofits and universities
#56Title should change to: "Microsoft is donating several Billion dollars worth of lock-in into their proprietary technologies".
Re: Microsoft will donate $1B in cloud services to nonprofits and universities
#57Between 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…
There's nothing new -- MS has been giving away free (or nearly so) Windows and Office suites to students as long as I remember. Only the product has changed, now it's cloud services. Basically, it's like a drug dealer giving you the first dose for free.
Re: Microsoft will donate $1B in cloud services to nonprofits and universities
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
One can certainly design one's apps in such a way where the cloud provider doesn't necessarily matter -- docker containers running on VMs, for instance. If you use a bunch of things like SQL Server, Document DB, etc. that is certainly much harder to migrate than PostgreSQL running on a VM.
Very good point. You could leverage Docker and an overlay networking solution like ours[1] to abstract yourself from the provider APIs and even the network itself.
Re: Microsoft will donate $1B in cloud services to nonprofits and universities
#59Title should change to: "Microsoft is donating several Billion dollars worth of lock-in into their proprietary technologies".
Would you feel the way if Apple donated $1B worth of iPads and iPhones? I feel like most people wouldn't, yet it also lock-in into their proprietary technology.
Re: Microsoft will donate $1B in cloud services to nonprofits and universities
#60Title should change to: "Microsoft is donating several Billion dollars worth of lock-in into their proprietary technologies".
Would you feel the way if Apple donated $1B worth of iPads and iPhones? I feel like most people wouldn't, yet it also lock-in into their proprietary technology.
>Would you feel the way if Apple donated $1B worth of iPads and iPhones?
Yeah