On May 7, 2004, at 11:10 AM, Will Hill wrote:
>   How is it that
> the University, which should know better than anyone, is rocketing 
> into such
> an ill planned and second rate IT solution?
>

It is easy... Windows is the lowest common denominator when it comes to 
operating systems.  Pretty much everyone that has sat down at a 
computer before has probably used windows and is at least familiar with 
it.  Not very many people have set down at a Mac, Solaris, Linux, 
FreeBSD, OpenBSD, etc.  Therefore there is a lot of politics involved.  
I can understand LSUs desire to standardize on the lowest common 
denominator, but I refuse to let them _require_ that *I* run windows as 
a condition of my enrollment as a student.

The underlying evil of most bad decisions is politics.  Whether it is 
in the government, education, the workplace, etc. it is always 
politics.  The last job that I worked at had an operations manager that 
drove people nuts, and made our best employees quit (including me) 
because they could not deal with him.  He was an awful person and cost 
the company hundreds of thousands in lost productivity and lost sales.  
But you know what?  He is to this day the operations manager.  Why?  
Not because it is the best thing to do to leave him there, not because 
he is profitable for the company, not because he is intelligent or a 
good manager... Because it is easier to bow to politics and the status 
quo.   The pres. of the company has admitted this to myself and other 
current and past employees many times.  The last time was about three 
weeks ago to a friend of mine that still works there.  I quit in August 
of '99.  The same thing goes for LSU.  It is not the best decision, but 
may be the easiest.   For the pencil pushers that often *is* the best 
decision.



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