Quote:
Originally Posted by Tim Delles
Ok so almost everyone here is saying that MS is taking over FIRST because they have 1 regional... one little regional in the northwest. ok so:
does that mean that BAE tried to take over FIRST when they brought a regional back to the founding state of NH?
does does that mean that UTC has tried to take over FIRST because they sponsor a lot of teams around the Hartford area and the regional in Hartford?
Heck what about NASA... they sponsor the MOST teams in first, and have a regional. are they taking over?
Yes FIRST may move to use MS product in 2009, but they may not. No one in FIRST or MS has come out and said we have made a partnership to do this and that. What they have said is they will sponsor a regional, putting it in Seattle so that teams don't have to drive 10 hours to get to the closest regional.
As for MS taking over FIRST, that is going to be nearly impossible. Honestly, they would have to convince the entire FIRST staff that MS was right, but how could they do that when FIRST has a goal, a goal they are very driven to.
I believe that Dean, Woodie and the rest of the gang are smart enough to realize if MS tries to do this, and they would inevitably deal with this (atleast i hope)
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Well, I'm pretty sure NASA has already taken over FIRST (6 regionals, webcasts, and several hundred teams), but do I'm not concerned. I look up to NASA as being pretty sweet.
Becuase, when was the last time your ion engine processed 245 kilograms of xenon?
I don't think the BAE argument holds up. BAE builds things that fly, and if they took over FIRST, water games would be the least of our worries. BAE has a vested interest in the workers they can acquire from FIRST, but not from the products they can sell to FIRST. Whereas Microsoft stands to gain a great deal from getting FIRST to use their platform. They'll have thousands to students using it, who'll be used to it, and continue to use it beyond high school. I don't know exactly what UTC does (aren't they a conglomerate of sorts?), but I don't think they have anything to gain from selling to us.
And, I don't think what people are concerned about is a "take over", where the FIRST staff at 200 Bedford are left out in the cold and Microsoft takes control of FIRST. What they're more worried about is a change from the relatively tried and true IFI controller configuration where we know exactly what we're getting.
I know what our mentors are at least concerned about is a movement towards a simplified coding environment, where the lower level stuff isn't accessable. I think FIRST stands too much to lose in the way of awesome autonomouses that they like to put in all of their promotional videos if they move in that direction though.