Get a (Microsoft) Life

I think I might need a 12-step program to wean my teenager off Microsoft products before she graduates from college and discovers she can't run to Best Buy to purchase a product called Microsoft Life for $199.

She's only 14, but Microsoft already has her hooked on at least 8 products. She now has her heart set on the 9th - Microsoft Student 2006. While analysts warn us about something they've coined the Digital Divide, with a sticker price of approximately $99.99, do you think I'm a bad parent if I let her fall into the crevice?

It all started when I purchased her a computer when she was still too little to pour milk over her own cereal. I admit it; I took the whole "no child left behind" campaign pretty seriously. I had visions of my child working in a coal mine due to a lack of proper cognitive skills. I could see her face blackened, a huge flashlight fastened to her head, signing her time card with an X.

Over the weekend, I followed her around to take an inventory of the items she uses. From grooming to clothing, she has a wide variety of products and no two are from the same company. However, in the course of 2 days she used Windows XP (of course), Microsoft Passport, Hotmail, MSN Messenger, Explorer, MS Word, FrontPage, Encarta and MapPoint. Microsoft certainly has a monopoly on my daughter's online leisure time. But should I let them make the leap into her education, too?

Microsoft Student 2006 is designed to "help students efficiently complete high-quality homework assignments and achieve academic success." It sounds like the definition of a good parent to me, but what do I know? As Microsoft explains, "Parents often feel ill-equipped to lend support because they have been out of school for many years and do not remember some of the basics of how to do a math problem or begin a research paper." Allow me a moment to wipe the drool off my chin before we take a look at what it the software actually does.