From - Tue May 05 16:20:35 1998 Received: from indiana.edu ([129.79.10.65]) by ns.abctec.net (8.7.1/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA07567 for ; Tue, 5 May 1998 11:17:53 -0400 Received: from hamlet.ucs.indiana.edu (hamlet.ucs.indiana.edu [129.79.10.41] (may be forged)) by indiana.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/1.16IUPO) with ESMTP id LAA15779 for ; Tue, 5 May 1998 11:19:37 -0500 (EST) Received: from localhost (bvoss@localhost) by hamlet.ucs.indiana.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3/1.8shakes) with SMTP id LAA26779 for ; Tue, 5 May 1998 11:19:36 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 5 May 1998 11:19:35 -0500 (EST) From: "Brian D. Voss" X-Sender: bvoss@hamlet.ucs.indiana.edu To: msbc@abctec.com Subject: response from Indiana University Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 Content-Length: 977 Mr. Rickard, I have been asked to provide a response to your petition to Indiana University, concerning our recent agreement with Microsoft. I will have that response to you soon, but before I send it I'd like to ask you if you intend to post it, unedited, on your web page? It is not our intent in responding to the petition to engage in a debate. Essentially, you forwarded a petition to us and we feel the need to respond. But we do not intend to continue a dialogue on this issue with your organization. Granted, you may editorialize on our response on your web page, as is your right. But from our view, once we've responded, this matter is closed as far as discussions with the Microsoft Boycott Campaign organization. Let me know your intentions and I will send you IU's response quickly. -Brian Brian D. Voss Director, Teaching and Learning Information Technologies Division University Information Technology Services Indiana University From - Thu May 07 11:14:50 1998 Received: from indiana.edu (cayman.ucs.indiana.edu [129.79.10.68]) by ns.abctec.net (8.7.1/8.6.12) with ESMTP id FAA23734 for ; Thu, 7 May 1998 05:57:15 -0400 Received: from hamlet.ucs.indiana.edu (hamlet.ucs.indiana.edu [129.79.5.202]) by indiana.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/1.16IUPO) with ESMTP id FAA17323 for ; Thu, 7 May 1998 05:59:24 -0500 (EST) Received: from localhost (bvoss@localhost) by hamlet.ucs.indiana.edu (8.8.5/8.7.3/1.8shakes) with SMTP id FAA20731; Thu, 7 May 1998 05:59:24 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 7 May 1998 05:59:24 -0500 (EST) From: "Brian D. Voss" X-Sender: bvoss@hamlet.ucs.indiana.edu Reply-To: "Brian D. Voss" To: Paul Rickard cc: bvoss@hamlet.ucs.indiana.edu Subject: Response from Indiana University In-Reply-To: <35517108.3E5D@abctec.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 Content-Length: 2113 We acknowledge the receipt of the petition submitted by Mr. Paul Rickard on behalf of the 'The Microsoft Boycott Campaign' organization. We note that of the 220 or so names on the list, only about 14 are recognizable as having come from within the IU system. Without further research, we cannot determine if a larger share of the petitioners are affiliates of Indiana University, its alumni, or residents of the State of Indiana. This, of course, would be the set of people to whom we would be primarily interested in responding. With regard to IU's agreement with Microsoft, our purpose is to serve the Indiana University community with information technology products and services demanded by that community. Our decision to pursue the agreement was based upon a history of purchases of Microsoft products made by departments throughout the University constituting faculty and staff demand for these products. Our decision to include students in the agreement was based upon application utilization statistics from our Student Technology Centers, representing student demand for Microsoft products. Concerning demand for covered products, since we signed the agreement and began distribution on March 31, 1998, we have obtained some useful information. As of April 30, 1998, a total of 31,145 copies of the available software products covered under the agreement had been distributed - this in the first 30 days of the contract. If we were to interpret the signatures on distribution forms as an endorsement of our decision to make this agreement -- which we feel is a reasonable assumption -- then we have 31,145 IU affiliates who asked for the software, to compare to 220 interested individuals, mostly all not affiliated with IU, who signed the MSBC petition. >From this, we draw the conclusion that the agreement has overwhelming support from the constituency we are most interested in serving: IU students, faculty, and staff. Brian D. Voss Director Teaching and Learning Information Technologies Division University Information Technology Services