Microsoft Attempts to Woo Students With 'Crowdsourced' Laptops 128
theodp writes "Q. What do Chris Brown and Steve Ballmer have in common? A. They both want you to Beg for It. GeekWire reports that Microsoft is touting its new Chip In program, a crowdfunding platform that allows students to 'beg' for select Windows 8 PCs and tablets that they can't afford on their own. Blair Hanley Frank explains, 'Students go to the Chip In website and choose one of the 20 computers and tablets that have been pre-selected by Microsoft. Microsoft chips in 10% of the price right off the bat, and then students are given a link to a "giving page" to send out to anyone they think might give them money. Once their computer is fully funded, Microsoft ships it to them.' Hey, what could go wrong?"
Forward this to 10 friends and get a free laptop!! (Score:5, Interesting)
This almost reminds me of all those e-mails from way back when that say if you forward the e-mail to 10 or so friends, Bill Gates will send you a free PC. I'm already very suspect of any e-mail asking for money, even if it is from someone I know.
Re:Spam (Score:5, Interesting)
And microsoft then sells your list of contacts to marketers or uses it themselves to spam.
Re:Forward this to 10 friends and get a free lapto (Score:5, Interesting)
I can already hear the Internet scams popping up right now.
You go to some family get-together.
Uncle: Hey Jimmy, I got that message about the laptop you wanted. I donated $300 for you!
Jimmy: Umm, I never signed up for any laptop nor did I send you a request to donate to buy one for me.
*crickets*
Re:Spam (Score:4, Interesting)
The funny thing is, this is for college "kids"... in other words -- grown fucking adults.
When I saw the shitty Slashdot blurb, I assumed this was going to be for disadvantaged children or something. Instead, it's for those poor unfortunate ADULTS who are so disenfranchised and disadvantaged that they're attending (through one manner or another) tens of thousands of dollars for college tuition and related expenses, but need to beg and spam people for the $600 for a laptop.
Ridiculous.
Re:kinda pointless given a few facts (Score:4, Interesting)
1. microsoft already enjoys lock-in at most universities and private colleges. shit like outlook and sharepoint has unfortunately shoved years of well-maintained unix to the roadside in an effort for universities to seem more cutting edge. protracted multi-month outages (ahem, University of Kentucky) requiring expensive consultants drive alongside patch tuesday now in the race to time best wasted.
I can only speak for what I see at my university; but I don't think this is really as prevalent anymore. I think too many schools got burned by experiences such as the one you refer to.
Now Microsoft does still try to do this, but they don't have the leverage they once did. On our campus Microsoft did schmooze the previous president to get Live included as an offering; but with the students Gmail is king and Dropbox is queen. The only people I know using Outlook and the other MS cloud options are some staff members for whom it's been the only email they've ever known.
Re:How about just giving them the laptops? (Score:4, Interesting)
$12 an hour would have been a fortune to me. I was working for $5 and spending 100+ hours a week in the labs. Working off campus was not much of an option since I could never really get the flexibility I needed out of other employers. The lab was only open a set of hours, and I was not going to hurt my grades for their meager wages.