Due to a colleague calling in sick I jumped in and gave a short presentation on Free Software & Open Standards to IT technicians at my university. Following my presentation two salesmen from Microsoft presented the corporate visions of the future and a short demo of the coming Vista and Office software.
The first salesman after hearing my presentation insisted on talking about how “Free Software” microsoft was. Since they were involved in several projects intended to define open standards this made, according to him, Microsoft – Free Software.
Should someone tell Balmer?
I bit my tongue when he spoke about all this and about trusted computing. It was all too much. He was so positive that the inconsistencies were only embarrasing.
He also was lyrical about schools without books and the fact that many university students are not able to use basic excel – something he felt the university should teach them. So I shut up while he praised the dumming down of universities.
I will get him during the break… Or maybe not… it’s just too embarassing to listen to.