So he did not really donate $1B right? How much is the cost of the DVDs & Training Manual &let us not forget the USB Dongle? $100 max?
What he did was help his company in future sales. The K-12 schools would shoulder the cost of training the students so that when they work for a GIS or Engineering company they would need less if not no training at all.
Shrewd tactic. Companies would then be buying his software because they could hire highschool graduates with basic ESRI software knowledge.
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Sounds like an old MicroStation trick...
Years ago when I was selling my photogrammetric software world-wide, working copies of my "Demo" were free to any college or university that asked. Sold a lot of software afterwards because of that. All it cost me was a floppy disk and a hardcopy of the manual with postage.
Sounds like you are being critical of guy of who is trying to help high school kids develop a skill and obtain knowledge that is needed in the real world. I was listening the CNBC today and they were talking about a report about the need for "skilled workers". We have an elevated unemployment rate, but these workers can't find jobs because they don't have the skills needed.
I say good for this guy. I would love to see other software developers follow up with their own offerings to schools ... Instead of Spanish or French, kids should be learning HTML, VB, Python, Java, or C++ ...
Now, your point about the guy getting credit for a billion dollar donation when it really cost him very little, sure, I can buy that. And plus, who is going to teach the kids to use this? It's not like schools are filled with ESRI experts. But, since he didn't have to do anything at all, I'll give him credit for trying to make a difference.
> I say good for this guy. I would love to see other software developers follow up with their own offerings to schools ... Instead of Spanish or French, kids should be learning HTML, VB, Python, Java, or C++ ...
> Sounds like you are being critical of guy of who is trying to help high school kids develop a skill and obtain knowledge that is needed in the real world. I was listening the CNBC today and they were talking about a report about the need for "skilled workers". We have an elevated unemployment rate, but these workers can't find jobs because they don't have the skills needed.
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> I say good for this guy. I would love to see other software developers follow up with their own offerings to schools ... Instead of Spanish or French, kids should be learning HTML, VB, Python, Java, or C++ ...
>
> Now, your point about the guy getting credit for a billion dollar donation when it really cost him very little, sure, I can buy that. And plus, who is going to teach the kids to use this? It's not like schools are filled with ESRI experts. But, since he didn't have to do anything at all, I'll give him credit for trying to make a difference.
Yes I am being critical. You see when you donate $1B of something, it means you are giving away a lot of your money. In his case, he is not really giving awy $1B of his money. It is not like he is not selling $1B of software because these copies will be going to the schools. His actual costs like I said is maybe $100 tops per copy.
His statemen smacks of selfserving BS. He wants to belong to the Gates, Buffet, club that donates $$$ of their own money. In the case of Gates and company, when they donate something, their assets and net worthreally goes down. Gates sells his Microsoft shares and donates th proceeds to charity.