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US Government Shunning Mac users

New Grant System Excludes Mac Users

“Uh, this would be the same government that spent a lot of time and money pursuing Microsoft for its anti-competitive behavior?” one blogger wrote. “And they now offer a government site that mandates monopoly?”

Indeed.
Contrast to the move that Massachusetts recently made to only use non-proprietary formats in state offices.
Sounds like a logical step for me, why should Government only be accessible to people who run Windows?
If you’re a Mac user in the United States, you should be giving hell over this. Tens of billions of dollars were spent, and apparently one of the goals was to require people to use Windows. There is no reason these days to not support standards that are cross-platform.
Some people will try to suggest that this is fine because there aren’t as many Macs deployed, but note this gem:

Critics note that in contrast to the domination of PCs in the business community, Macs constitute about one-third to one-half of the computers scientists and academicians use.

Ah, to know your target audience and shun half of your userbase. Thanks, guys.


New Grant System Excludes Mac Users

“Uh, this would be the same government that spent a lot of time and money pursuing Microsoft for its anti-competitive behavior?” one blogger wrote. “And they now offer a government site that mandates monopoly?”

Indeed.
Contrast to the move that Massachusetts recently made to only use non-proprietary formats in state offices.
Sounds like a logical step for me, why should Government only be accessible to people who run Windows?
If you’re a Mac user in the United States, you should be giving hell over this. Tens of billions of dollars were spent, and apparently one of the goals was to require people to use Windows. There is no reason these days to not support standards that are cross-platform.
Some people will try to suggest that this is fine because there aren’t as many Macs deployed, but note this gem:

Critics note that in contrast to the domination of PCs in the business community, Macs constitute about one-third to one-half of the computers scientists and academicians use.

Ah, to know your target audience and shun half of your userbase. Thanks, guys.

By Jason O'Grady

Founded the PowerPage in 1995.

2 replies on “US Government Shunning Mac users”

The University of Wisconsin-Madison posted the following:
Grants.gov for Mac OS X is a single package containing all the necessary items to use the Grants.gov Citrix server solution from Mac OS X. This package is provided to the community as a service by the University of Wisconsin, and is not an official product of Grants.gov
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/29130

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