Because Microsoft is just as happy to sell overpriced packages of unnecessary functionality to clueless or corrupt government employees as Cisco is, and they have the extra property of arguing fervently against the use of free/open source software that competes against their offerings and would save even more.
I don't have a source handy, but around 2004-2005 Steve Ballmmer came in a short visit to my country (somewhere in Eastern Europe), he had a even shorter meeting with the Prime Minister of that time and sure enough not 6 months later a Government programme was launched and all the schools and public libraries in my country had to be equipped with Windows machines. This was around the time when people thought that tools like Open Office actually had a chance of toppling the MS Office suite.
30 years ago, why would anyone have bothered to use MS Word when nobody used it in the workplace? Everyone used WordPerfect or WordStar.
If you had a generation of kids who have experience with openoffice, it'll be much more likely that openoffice would be something that would be adopted over time - newly formed companies using it, gradual shift away from MS Office, etc.
MS knows their history, and will continue to seed generations of users with low-cost/free stuff to keep their dominance going. If they quit doling out free copies, something like openoffice would gain a larger foothold in schools and eventually businesses in < 10 years. Would MS Office be entirely replaced? Of course not, but it would not be the default/automatic choice for everyone without question.
Exactly. It should just teach the industry standard, which in this case is MS Office. It's not the education systems' role to push for open source solutions.
well, I am happy that some people might realize this was a bad idea after that auditors report showing approximately all $5 million was wasted. And also that Cisco's claim that "the state had reviewed his spreadsheets and not objected" is not a reasonable excuse.
