- 2005.08.03
Sometimes
the headlines just write themselves.
According to an article at the Register,
MS Website Trumpets 'Pyramid' Company, Microsoft has been
featuring a case study about GoldQuest, a pyramid scheme
company!
This, of course, is not Microsoft's fault. Companies that use
Windows to generate funds through pyramid schemes do not have to
tell Redmond what they are up to any more than purveyors of
spyware, adware, viruses, Trojan horses, networks of zombie
computers belching up personal information to Mafia lords,
spammers, or anyone else has to. These things manifestly do not
have anything to do with Microsoft per se, any more than
. . . some other analogy that I was thinking of but
forgot.
Any way, the point of this article (and I do have a point) is
that Microsoft itself is a kind of pyramid scheme.
In your classic pyramid scheme, you sell something of limited
value and tell the seller that they can make money by selling the
same valueless thing to friends for the same price less a minor
finder's fee. The "mark" is told that as more people join the
pyramid, more money trickles down the pyramid to him through the
finder's fees, eventually making him rich with very little
effort.
In the Microsoft version, the "mark" (an IT guy) is told that if
they use Windows, they'll be more compatible and more productive.
Further, if they convince 10 users in their company to use Windows,
then all the additional savings will be passed on to the IT
department, which can hire more people to take care of the
additional computers.
Managers further up the food chain know to get a budget proposal
through the executive committee. They need to include a technology
line estimating the costs of additional computers, data storage
resources, etc. required to complete a project. The IT guys clue
them into the savings they will have if they go single-platform
across the company, and the managers buy into the pyramid.
CEOs and CIOs are told not only by the managers but by the IT
staff as well how going single-platform (read: Windows) will save
them money not only for a particular project, but for the budget of
the company overall.
Funny thing is, no one ever writes a line item in a budget for
the savings. No managers ever get additional resources for these
savings, and somehow the IT staff always seems to soak up the
savings without managing to cut staff, reduce expenses, or increase
productivity.
Isn't that a pyramid scheme?
In a true pyramid scheme only the people in the first layer get
really rich. And those would be . . . umm . . .
lemme see . . . it wouldn't be the people actually
using the computers, hmm . . . not the managers
. . . not the CEO or CIO . . . hmm
. . . it would have to be . . . .
Microsoft!
Why is it, I wonder, that people always say, "They are making us
all switch to Microsoft," and never, "We are all switching to
Microsoft because we want to?"
