Disclaimer: This article is an April Fool’s article featured in our 2018 April Fool’s issue. 

The Iona IT department announced on Monday that it will be installing Microsoft Office 97 onto computers school-wide before the end of the semester.

Jimmy Gates, 56, who claims to be the sixth cousin twice removed by second marriage to Bill Gates, convinced the IT Department to switch.

“He showed up in Ryan Library one day last semester,” Bits Software, head of IT, said. “He talked about a bunch of issues with the newer versions of Microsoft that we didn’t even know existed. It seemed like the obvious choice to switch over to Microsoft Office 97.”

Software said he did not know how much experience with computers Gates had.

“But if he’s related to Bill Gates, he has to know what he’s talking about!” Software said.

Gates could not be reached for comment.

According to Software, the newer Microsoft Offices were very complicated, and students had complained about the complexity.

“There are too many options on the newer versions of Microsoft Office,” freshman Lola Seinfeld said. “I never used Microsoft Office 97 because I wasn’t born at that time, but it seems like it would be easier.”

Software said it did not take a lot of convincing to get the ghost of Brother Christian Sister, former president of Iona, on board with the idea.

“When I was alive, there were no personal computers,” Sister said. “I’m not sure why college students even need computers. Astronauts, yeah, but not your average person.”

Members of the IT department said that the costs might outweigh the benefits of loading a new Office onto the computers because the current computers do not have the capacity to work Microsoft Office 97.

“We would have to invest in all new computers,” Giga Bytes, a staff member of IT, said. “We would need to purchase computers which have been out of production for over a decade and acquire a software that is no longer created. We have found computers and a version of the software, but it will be expensive. I’m not sure that the school can afford to spend that kind of money.”

Bytes did say that zey would be in support of the switch, if not for the cost.

Senior Dylan Frindle said that he used Microsoft Office 97 as a child and that there were other superior Microsoft Office versions to use.

“Microsoft 2003 is obviously the better option,” he said. “It fixes the problems with Microsoft 1997 without making the software overly complicated.”

Frindle met with Software to discuss the difference of opinion.

“Software said that he understood my concerns but that it would be much more expensive to obtain Microsoft 2003, which I can understand,” Frindle said.

Mychil Community, director of OSD, informed the Ionian that with the switch, the club would not be able to use the current program it uses to lay out every Ionian issue.

“The Ionian will be switched over to a moveable type printing press,” Community said. “Not only will it save energy, but it will simplify the process and does not require us to pay for printing.”

“I think this is a great opportunity,” senior Ariana Press, editor-in-chief of The Ionian, said. “The program we used before was so hard to work around and required us to be far too dependent on computers. With the moveable type printing press, we will be able to avoid using a computer entirely.”

Other clubs are not so enthused.

“This will make getting information out to the school very complicated,” Also In-Charge, the executive vice president of the Student Government Association said. “We do not have the ability to send mass emails to the entire school over Microsoft 1997. It will make reaching out to club presidents and students much more difficult.”

The computers will be in later this month, according to Software, and the current computers will be switched out with the “new” ones as they are ready.