Microsoft's big role on campus
MSNBC | at | by Mike
Bearing gifts of cash, software and computers worth $25 million, Microsoft came to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1999, saying it wanted to jointly develop educational technologies. Some scholars expressed more suspicion than gratitude.
AT A celebration to kick off the collaboration, students and faculty members heckled the speakers, insisting the computer company's software wasn't worthy of use or study at MIT. Some took boxes of Microsoft's Office 2000 software and stomped on them. An editorial in the school newspaper wondered: Had the school sold itself out to become the "Microsoft Institute of Technology?"