Microsoft, please carry on…

Courtesy of Rixstep:

Spontaneous Shoplifting @ MSFT Store

Words don’t often fail me, but the sight of a dozen minor-geeks, awkwardly clapping and trying to dance, under the guise of spontaneity… well I don’t know what to say or where to begin.

Microsoft, you’re making a complete fool of yourself. You really don’t know what (hopefully) irreparable damage you are doing to your brand (such that it is) and your public image.

Years from now, when Microsoft are long, long gone, people will look back at the YouTube video and say that this was one of the 10 or so key moments where severe blows were dealt that added to this company’s downfall.

The reason why Microsoft have survived and prospered this far, is because of the army of Windows IT Professionals that have propped up this loose assortment of sloppy hacks and ass-backwards ‘me-too’ and ‘just good enough’ coding.

They have survived because of the mass-ignorance of your average PC-buyer, who needed their hand held whilst buying their computer.

But now things have changed. Apple, Google, Twitter, Facebook and dozens of others have caught up whilst Microsoft were sleeping, and Microsoft’s customer has changed – they are armed with geek-knowledge and they know how to use it.

Ballmer, like the captain on the Titanic, tried to ignore it, but now, with market-share and mind-share slipping he has to do something.

He calls on his troops, but more and more of these troops are bringing in laptops with Apple logos on them. They have iPods, and iPhones, they use Google instead of Bing, and Office is the last thing on their mind with free alternatives readily available.

So he does something – Vista. A total failure that would have finished most companies – but Microsoft isn’t ‘most’ companies.

He tries ‘new’ and ‘different’ advertising campaigns. They are met with derision, confusion and worst of all – laughter, the ‘at’ kind, not the ‘with’ kind.

Plan B. If you can’t beat them – join them. Or copy them. Copy them in exactly the same way you’ve copied them before, back when that ‘computer for the rest of us’ was first released.

Copy it backwards and upside down. In such a way that although all the pieces are there, they just don’t quite fit together.

What you are seeing in this poor, poor, sad video above, is Microsoft in the raw. When the support from all the IT professionals has gone.

They have to compete. On their own. This is who they really are.

I’ve often thought Microsoft were indestructible and I would be writing this blog to the end of my days with them always there, always copying, always getting it totally wrong.

You know I’m beginning to see, at last, the end of this once never great company.

No such thing as bad PR?

Windows 7 doth approach, and Microsoft, in it’s wisdom have organised ‘Windows 7 parties’ to encourage the poor deluded majority to bet, once again, that this version of Windows is the one they will actually enjoy using.

The one that will at last, be intuitive, won’t crash much, will be free from viruses and malware, just like those other computers that they don’t like to mention very much.

The general reception that the Windows 7 party idea has had is predictably consistent; it’s an awful, cheesy, cliche and pain-inducing idea that only reinforces the idea that Microsoft are so totally uncool and unhip, that it’s a wonder their bums don’t fall off (to quote Zaphod Beeblebrox).

However one excuse for all the fallout has been, ‘there’s no such thing as bad PR.’ Meaning that it doesn’t matter that the idea is awful, it doesn’t matter that everyone is laughing at Microsoft, the number of column inches it generates is worth all the bad press.

However I do not agree.

Many years ago I worked alongside a person who I had great respect from in the creative and advertising industry. Our team was tasked with creating a straightforward campaign for a large supermarket chain to advertise a sale.

This advertising took many forms, but one part was bus-shelter posters.

Now being trained graphic designers we new that the thought process for the consumer was thus:

You hook in the consumer with a gimmick, an offer or an angle.

You then hold there attention with an attractive, easy to ‘consume’, flowing, logical design.

You then let them go, away from your adverts influence, with a thought, or memory of your offer.

The last part is the most important. The consumer will spend infinitely more time away from your ads influence, than being exposed to it. You don’t have long to get your message across and that message has to hit home first time, and it must stay with them when you ad is long gone.

This period is the time where your influence has to be positive so that the consumer can pass your message along to another person.

This is why ‘viral marketing’ is a difficult and dangerous approach. You have to get your message and every possible interpretation of that message absolutely right.

Anyway I digress a little- back to the supermarket’s ad.

We created what we thought best fulfilled those 3 critera, to hook, to hold & give right memory. However the client didn’t see it that way.

They wanted something much more direct, simple and gaudy. Put simply they wanted their ad on a dayglo green or orange background, so that it ’stood out’ and shouted their message.

It certainly would hook & hold, but the memory? My colleague commented that, “We’ve hooked them in, the ad will be noticed most certainly, they will even read the ad, but what memory are they left with? a cheap and nasty one.”

The client, whose product was most certainly not cheap and nasty, finally relented, but this experience made me think about the Windows 7 party.

It’s getting the column inches, and we’re certainly hooked and held, but what’s the memory we are left with? What are we saying to others about this approach?

Microsoft seems to think that any news is good news… I don’t think so.

Microsoft’s retail stab in the dark…

Upon thinking about Microsoft entry into the retail space, a few thoughts occur.

Microsoft have a really deep seated envy of everything that Apple does. Now, they’ve always had this from the very first meeting about Windows 1.0, and in the past they could get away with it.

After all, despite all Apple’s efforts, they were not a mainstream company. Microsoft and their partners dominated and no-one outside Apple’s niche had ever heard of them.

All the great unwashed saw was ever greater ‘innovation’ coming from Redmond. They did not know that this innovation was a photocopied, me-too agenda based upon what Apple did.

This approach works fine, as long as Apple remains a niche.

Can you really say that Apple Inc. is at this current moment ‘a niche player’?

Group together everything that Apple does, the Mac, iPod, iPhone etc, and their approaching 10% market share (and even greater mind-share), I think not.

Why does this make a difference? Well, Microsoft can keep up the pretense of being an ‘innovator’ as long as no-one (or at least the majority) knows that Apple exists.

This is all the more difficult, and one very good reason this is getting harder, is because of those pesky Apple Retail Stores.

People used to listen to their ‘geeky friend’ on what computer to purchase, which was usually, if not always Windows.

That’s not the case now, they see an Apple Store, go in, and more often than not, purchase. I don’t know what their footfall conversion rate is (the % of customer who enter a store and either do or do not purchase something), but according to Apple 50% of those purchases are to Windows users.

So what is Microsoft to do? Well there’s only one thing to do, fight fire with fire.

But Microsoft has a problem, and it’s a problem that cannot be got around. The PC model is proprietary OS on open hardware. Apple’s model is open OS (sort, parts of etc), on proprietary hardware.

Now I don’t care what people say, Apple’s model gives us more reliable computers, Microsoft’s model gives problems – lot of them, with more chances to go wrong.

Apple’s model is naturally fits the retail environment. People enter Apple Stores for an experience. Yes, they take their computers in to be fixed, and Apple manages that quite well, as their model keeps those fixes down to an acceptable level.

Microsoft? Their model invites problems, how the hell are they going to manage all those PC users with viruses, spam, malware and faulty hardware because their ‘geeky friend’ made their computer?

This should be interesting to watch…

Microsoft to open retail stores?…

This is going to be fun to watch…

Imagine the scene: Microsoft opens it’s store, hoping that people will walk through the door and fully grasp that Microsoft software can help their digital life and will be wowed by everything they have to offer and they won’t go to that funny fruit store down the street.

However what will happen is that Joe Sixpack will walk through the door walk up to the counter and say, “Ug! Computer not work, you fix!” (Along with the 20 people behind them with similar complaints).

The patient (and butt-ugly) Microsoft genius with say, “I’m very sorry sir, but your issue is a hardware issue and I’m afraid Microsoft only deal with software, I can give you the number of the Dell support-line?”

Mr Sixpack will then say, “Ug! Dellman say your software got virus, you fix!”

The Genius eyes will then light up and say, “Aaaah, yes sir then we can help you, we sell virus killing software starting at $59.95 per month for our basic package.” He then hands him a leaflet.

Mr Sixpack numbly hands over his credit card, “just make computer work – me want pr0n!”

At the end of the month Microsoft will say that their software stores are a great success, having sold millions of software packages that help their customer get more from their computer purchase.

If anything, this will force more consumers into Apple stores because for the first time, Microsoft will meet the great-unwashed PC buying public – and their problems. I really don’t think Microsoft realise that aspect at all – they really are that arrogant and full of themselves.

The will not be able to cope – it will be a PR disaster. All Apple needs to do is air a well-timed Mac vs PC add that targets this sh*t storm, and watch them come through the doors.

Microsoft, please, please, please – carry on.

Reaction to Microsoft’s answer to ‘GetaMac’

I’ve not published for a while as I have been knee-deep in the negotiations to convert my company’s website from a standard informational website in to a fully-fledged ecommerce site.

So I’ve let pass the current effort by Microsoft to counter the resurgence of the Mac with their own set of advertising, costing $300 million no less.

Being very busy, I don’t have the time to look into the metaphorical reasoning behind the Seinfield ads, but I assure you I will sooner or later.

I’m a marketing guy and I deal with peddling bullshit to consumers on a daily basis, and at first glance these ads seem amateurish at best.

In addition, I’m too late – they’ve been pulled already.

Microsoft have continued the assault on Apple with the ‘I’m a PC’ ads. Again however, the ads seem poorly thought out and clumsy in their execution.

But I’m not going to go into detail, but one thing I’ve noticed is the reception that any advertising effort by Redmond seems to generate in the media. It seems that the press is resoundingly negative in their judgement.

Why is this? Surely something can be said of these adverts that would give Microsoft some hope? Even myself at my most impartial, could, if pushed, muster some sort of positive morsel.

It seems to me that the tables have been turned.

Back in the 80’s & 90’s, the main motivating factor, the thing, above all that would sway someone’s opinion on whether to choose an IBM PC or a Macintosh, was their friendly (or not so friendly) neighbourhood geek.

The spotty nerd at work, the weirdo that fixed the computers, the clumsy nobby-no-mates that bored you senseless with talk of RAM, memory, DOS & hard disks.

And his recommendation was (you guessed it), the DOS (and Windows) PC. He scoffed at the Mac, calling it a toy, lacking in software, no powerful and something that nobody used.

And his recommendation stuck. For years. And years. We’ve been at the brunt-end of that decision ever since. The entire IT industry is geared towards pushing us to Windows and the PC.

Fast forward to the last few years. After years of crashes, viruses, trojans, malware and ever cheap computers, that seem to last little more than 18 months, the consumer who relied of their geeky friends recommendation just doesn’t believe them anymore.

So who do they believe? Well who’s left?

Their not going to listen to a Mac user either, because we get lumped together with those geeky weirdoes.

The only thing left is the media. They are listening to the media, the ad-men, all those artists who use Macs in all the creative departments up and down the land, all those PR agencies and marketing people who use predominantly the Mac.

The Mac’s time has come – for years the IT geeks recommended the PC to anybody who would listen, well those days are gone. Now that the consumer’s ear is turning towards the media, we will recommend nothing but the Mac.

Poetic justice for all the years of misery they’ve put us all through.

My god, these people still exist..?

Live with it: Mac is not the greatest

Oh dear, I thought we’d already discussed this a million times on every forum in the known universe.

The public has spoken, and they want Mac’s, not PC’s – live with it.

I thought that people like this would just, y’know, go back to their server rooms or something, but it seems that every now and again, between chocolate bars, squeezing spots and the hosing down and reinstallation of Windows, they post flame-bait like this.

They can say anything they like, because they are journalists with a PC-bias, and we are just Mac-users who just want to tell everyone that there’s a better way.

We can’t say anything in retaliation because if we dare to speak up, we’re pigeonholed as blind cult followers.

All those stories you hear about Windows users switching to Mac and then wondering why they didn’t do it years ago, well that’s just lies put about by these ‘weird’ Mac people.

But you can’t win with situations like this, so I suggest to everyone that please, please, please when the next Windows-spod pokes his head from around the server-room door, and tries to convince you that all these Macs are a waste of time and you ought to be on Windows, just ignore him.

Please don’t reply to his article, even if it’s well meaning – he’ll just use it as ammunition against us.

If you want to post a retort, then start your own blog if you have to so you don’t give him the traffic that he most sorely needs.

In another few years these people will quieten down, after the people they work for/with start bringing in iPhones, and telling everyone they’ve just bought a Mac as well, and that they’d wished they’d done it years ago.

Microsoft innovate at last!

Link from Mac Daily News…

Here’s a interesting quote from Microsoft to their ‘mobile partners’.

“It’s now my honor and privilege to announce a milestone that our partnership HAS ACCOMPLISHED. This fiscal year we WILL SELL nearly 20 million Windows Mobile smartphone licenses, making Windows Mobile one of the most widely used smartphone software platforms in the world.”

Emphasis is mine.

Is this now Microsoft’s approach? Instead of celebrating when they have reached a target, they celebrate in the past, BEFORE that target is reached (demonstrating breathtaking arrogance and taking their customer for a ride granted)?

Their innovation now knows no bounds – apparently as well as a ‘big ass table’, they’ve also developed a ‘big ass time machine’.

Humour aside, the hidden meaning of this missive, shows, unglazed how frightened Microsoft actually are.

Their ‘partners’ will survive, as Apple does not want to completely, unfairly dominate industries (like Microsoft do), but Microsoft is another matter – it has suddenly realised how vulnerable it really is.

Carpet bombing flaw in Safari is not a problem because…

 

Link from Slashdot to arcticle at The Register

So let me get this straight, a flaw in Safari, could allow a malicious attacker to download files (1, 2 or thousands) to your Windows desktop without your perrmission.

But the flaw doesn’t allow execution.

Because Apple’s not that stupid.

You know, to allow just ‘any’ file to just execute without permission.

So what’s the problem? Other than it being a ‘design’ flaw? It’s certainly not a security flaw is it? the files cannot be executed and therefore cause untold damage can they?

Ah, right but those files can…

By a flaw in Windows.

Not Safari, then.

So it’s Microsoft’s problem then is it?

That’s right it is.

And when will Microsoft fix this flaw?

No word on that. Yet.

I’m sure they’ll get round to fixing it asap, once they’ve blamed Apple for drawing attention to their SECURITY flaw, by a DESIGN flaw that Apple, quite rightly, didn’t really think would cause too much of a problem, because no company is stupid to allow files to execute by themselves.

Except Microsoft. Again.

 

Apparently, we’re weird because we like computers to look nice…

 

Apparently, we’re weird because we like computers to look nice…

Link: I’m going to write about people who I completely misunderstand.

This recent posting postulates the question, “Mac users don’t like others touching their stuff.”

The reasoning behind it is that because we pay so much (apparently) for our kit, we don’t like other people using it and supposedly breaking it.

But, as usual PC pundits fail to see the wider issue.

It’s because I don’t want ignorant PC users who see technology as a useless commodity, covered in stickers, touching my pristine Mac’s/iPod’s/iPhone.

It’s got nothing to do with how much I paid for it, it’s to do with the way in which Windows users treat their technology.

If I get another PC user coming up to my flawlessly clean LCD screen and smudge it with his or her greasy finger, I’ll scream.

I walk through our Windows IT department daily and see ugly tin boxes, covered in dust, stickers, pen marks, yesterday’s lunch wrappers and worse.

When the electrician’s come to my company and test all the electrical equipment, they have to put an ugly ‘tested’ sticker on everything. PC users are quite happy to have this sticker anywhere on their PC, I have almost punched said electrician for considering to stick it on the ‘front’ of my G5 Tower.

I had to loan a little iBook to a PC user once, I received it back a month later and it was filthy, and had what looked like jam on the LCD screen. I actually felt sorry for the poor thing and spent over an hour giving it a good clean.

PC users don’t care. PC users pay next to nothing for basement-spec PC’s. PC users think nothing of the hardware.

Am I weird? Probably, but I have to work with these computers all day, and I also have to be creatively active at a moments notice.

I, like most creative people realise that ideas best surface in a clean, ordered environment, where the equipment I use has had time spent on it’s look and feel (both hardware and software).

This is why we don’t like PC users, ‘using’ our equipment – they just don’t think that this is important.

 

More Windows problems…

 

Currently I have a PC in my studio that is connected to a USB printer, and this printer in Windows is being shared to the network.

I also have a couple of Mac’s that access this shared printer, and occasionally use it if the main workhorse A3 laser printer is busy.

This has worked fine on the Mac side, but occasionally, about once a month, the Mac’s connection to the printer doesn’t work.

The standard way to fix this is:

Test the PC to see if it still prints, 100% of the time it doesn’t, so we call in our in-house Windows IT spods to recreate the printer and share it again.

The Mac’s then work normally again, with no reconfiguration at all, they simply pick up the new printer and they’re good to go.

The mantra is, “If the PC prints, then the Mac will print also. Automatically.” This is why I use the Mac, it just works.

 

However, last week this wasn’t the case. The Mantra didn’t work.

As usual the Mac stopped printing to the shared USB printer. However this time, the PC printed fine.

So I asked the Windows IT spods to recreate the printer anyway. They did, it still didn’t work.

So I recreated the shared printer on the Mac and this is where we got to the bottom of the problem.

When you connect to a shared Windos printer on the Mac, it asks you for the login information for the PC. We knew this info, and we put this info in correctly, however the PC wasn’t accepting it, giving a ‘NT ACCESS DENIED” error, whatever that is.

So we thought the problem was with the Mac, and after half an hour trying different things, I gave up, telling the Mac-user to print to the A3 printer instead in the meantime.

I thought that was that, except next day the Windows PC wouldn’t log in to it’s desktop at all. The same log in info now wasn’t working on the PC either.

The spods came in, took it away, seemingly recreating the user with a new account & login.

Guess what, when I tried recreating the shared PC printer on the Mac – it worked fine.

So the problem was the PC simply deciding that it had had enough with that account and the only solution was to create a new one, which in turn solved our printer problem.

One day, Windows simply decides it’s not going to work anymore and needs massaging back to workability, and a whole career has been created around this concept.

I can see now why WIndows IT people are needed – and why they are scared sh*tless of the Mac.

 

Safari for Windows… why?

 

What’s always struck me about Apple since Steve Jobs’ return, is they never do anything without a very good reason. There’s no half-hearted attempts at any enterprise, once they commit themselves, there’s no ‘try’ there is only ‘do’.

There are no sacred cows, they think the unthinkable, and they will quite happily cut off a leg to save the patient.

So what is the ‘very good reason’ for Safari on Windows, what benefit does it give them?

Why did Apple release Safari for Windows in the first place?

Why does Apple actively put engineer hours behind it keeping it updated?

Why is Apple aggressively pushing Safari onto Windows users?

Why does Apple bend over backwards (or a least slightly lean over), when those same Windows users complain that the way in which it’s aggressively distributed, seemingly spurring Apple to change it to appease them? This is unheard of from ‘focus-group free’ Apple.

Apple would only put man (and woman) hours behind Safari for Windows, if it benefited them in some way now, or in the future. Look at iTunes for Windows – it makes Apple a fortune.

So is this about the money? Is it simply so all those Windows users will use the Google search bar, and therefore make Apple even more dough? I’d like to think it’s more than just that.

Apple’s overall game plan is to sell Mac computers, and other Apple hardware. It’s where they make the most money. The move to Unix, Intel, creating iTunes for Windows are all about exposing Windows users to the Apple brand and enticing them over – the halo effect if you will.

But Safari for Windows isn’t hardware – it’s software. So is this about giving Windows users a better browsing experience, to entice them over to the Mac?

Well I think it’s all this and more.

In the future, once the pipe is big enough, cloud computing will be with us all, at least for consumers and business, for content creators such as myself, the pipe will NEVER be big enough for cloud computing.

All your data will reside on the internet, and the conduit for all that data is a browser, and if Apple has it’s way, that browser will be Safari, for both Windows & the Macintosh.

So does that mean .Mac for Windows? You heard it here first.

But, in true Apple style, it won’t be the same on both platforms. Windows users will get the Windows .Mac, and the Mac users will get the .Mac that’s tied closely and seamlessly to Apple hardware, giving Windows users another reason to switch.

 

So the evil twin of the Mac has been created…

Engadet has reviewed it here, and here’s a summary of their findings:

• The graphics card appears to be an NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT, but it doesn’t show up in ASP, so we have to confirm. Psystar’s store says it’s supposed to be a 256MB card, but we have 512MB — strange.

• It’s LOUD. Crazy loud. OS X doesn’t seem to interface with the fan controller, so it runs at full tilt all the time. It doesn’t really come across on the video, but it’s loud enough so that it’s hard to talk on the phone when the machine is running. There’s no way we could deal with this thing on a daily basis.

• The DHCP lease drops every fifteen minutes or so and you have to manually renew it in prefs.

• Apple System Profiler doesn’t know how to read the configurations of several systems, notably memory and audio. The Audio screen just says there’s no built-in audio, while the Memory page returns an error.

•The included copy of Leopard was out of the shrinkwrap, but there’s no way to install it — it shows up in Startup Disk but it won’t restart, and it’s not recognized at boot.

That’s just first impressions – expect things to get worse.

Ooooh, can’t you just feel the quality?

So, in summary, it switches on and runs, but there are some annoying glitches, errors and parts that just flat out don’t work which I’m (not) sure that Psystar will get around to fixing very soon.

Who would buy this? Hold on, doesn’t that summary sound just like Windows?

I’m sure Windows users who have spent their entire life thinking they get ‘value’ from their ‘cheap as chips’ PC’s, will feel right at home.

The Apple-hater’s wet dream continues…

 

Think before you click.

Think before you click (again).

Let me start by putting something into perspective that a lot of Mac supporters, and people who are neutral tech observers don’t realise.

There are people (bloggers, journalists & users) out there who have Apple hatred in their DNA.

I won’t go into the reasons why, but briefly, they hate everything Apple stands for. They hate the logo, they hate Steve Jobs, they hate the hardware, they hate OSX, they hate the iPhone, iPod and especially the users. 

Apple has a long history of bucking trends, and proving people wrong and they have upset a lot of people along the way, some get over it, some definitely do not.

With this in mind, my attention has been brought upon the recent controversy of Psystar, and this has opened the ‘debate’ on whether Apple really ought to release Mac OSX to work on open hardware.

There’s also the side-issue put forward by some pundit that they could legally be forced to.

Now, I don’t care about Psystar. I think that Apple will shut them down, and if they can’t they’ll release an update that trashes the hardware.

This in turn will either force those users back to Windows, (no problem, because they weren’t going to buy Apple hardware anyway, so no lost sale there), or it will pique their interest and encourage them to buy Apple hardware.

So whatever happens, it won’t hurt Apple, in fact, in might help them.

But, coming back to those pundits who have that DNA-fault, they are constantly on the lookout for news that will, under their encouragement, allow them to fulfill their wet-dream.

That dream being that Apple will disappear, be absorbed or destroyed. They will no longer have to consider them, report on them or have to even say the word ‘Apple’ ever again.

They will of course write page upon page of drivel, baiting the old-Apple users and force them to realise that they were right all along. Apple is dead, Microsoft have triumphed. Yes, they are that petty and childish.

This latest development with Psystar, is just another facet of that dream. The PC-pundits see this as an opportunity to kill Apple, or at least push us all to that conclusion.

They feel that if Psystar is successful it will start a snowball that will encourage Dell, HP etc to join in and simply release hardware that can run OSX.

And they know full well that Apple cannot exist on that model. Without hardware sales, Apple is gone, it does not exist anymore.

Certainly Apple as a software company would not have the disruptive effect it has at the moment. Indeed, Apple would fade to a shadow of it’s former self, effectively a niche software provider, if not dead completely.

I suppose in their twisted minds, they want everyone to be the same. They are jealous that Apple users time and time again prove them wrong again on all fronts.

We are the scratch they can’t reach, we are the irritating song they can’t get out of their heads, we are always there, in the background, constantly reminding them that they have made the wrong computing choice.

I suppose that what they’re saying is, is that if we won’t join them on the Windows side, then they want our OS to be as buggy as their’s (by being on open hardware), because there’s a very good reason why Mac’s ‘just work’ it’s because Apple control the hardware & software.

That’s another aspect that they can’t swallow, that proprietary software (Windows) on open hardware is buggy and unmanageable. Open(ish) software (Mac OSX) on closed hardware is much more reliable and easy to manage.

So, over the next few months, until this all dies down, if you’re reading articles about whether Apple should become a software company, or the fact the Apple is days away from being sued and being forced to sell the software on open hardware, just remember what this is all about.

They want us to not exist. Let’s keep proving them wrong.

Superenthused?…

So Bill Gates is wheeled out before the press in order to distract everyone from the complete disaster that is Vista. (For the definition of disaster, see here.)

After the first negative reviews of Vista came in, Microsoft was careful to say that the next version of Windows (given the creative-free title of ‘7′), would be 3 years away, but we all know that in Microsoft-years, that means at least 5 years, probably 7.

But, even when I strip away the layer upon layer of pro-Apple skin that encompasses my entire body, when I look at this as objectively as I can, Vista has been a laughing stock.

The company I work for has completely ignored Vista – totally.

The companies I deal with on a daily basis act like it doesn’t exist.

Put simply – if it wasn’t for Microsoft’s cash hoard, they wouldn’t exist either.

So along comes Bill Gates to assure everyone (again) that the next version of Windows will be the one we’ve all been waiting for, the one that will work, the one that he’s been promising since, since, well forever…

Hang on, hasn’t Microsoft been doing this all along? Every release of Windows has been awful, without fail. It’s full of bugs, it doesn’t work as advertised and to get it working, it assumes you have an army of IT specialists, on-site to make sure that once they do get it working, nobody touches or changes anything, in case it all comes crashing down like the fragile deck of cards that it is.

So….. Windows 7. It’ll be great, it’ll work on the desktop, it’ll work on mobile devices, it’ll also have, wait for it… multi-touch.

Just like all the other versions were supposed to have (apart from multi-touch of course).

Sigh…

Of course, being a Mac user I couldn’t care less, but don’t Windows users feel, you know, deep down inside, just a little bit, you know… conned?

Of course Microsoft have always done this. It’s a standing joke in the tech industry that Microsoft waits for Apple to innovate in their small niche space and then arrogantly takes that innovation and applies to their Windows monopoly.

Your average Windows user, who doesn’t even know Apple exists, only sees ‘Microsoft at the forefront of the tech industry, yet again.’

However Microsoft’s ploy only works if Apple remains in its niche. Now that Apple has a greater consumer presence and it’s market share is on the rise, those average Windows users are beginning to smell a rat.

That joke isn’t funny anymore, and the FUD that Microsoft relies on is being challenged at last.

We’ve reached 21% (10% worldwide) – so it’s plan B…

 

 

Think before you click.

 

I’ve spoken in previous article’s how Apple’s plan to completely dominate the computing landscape is well underway.

 

Various initiatives such as the move to Intel, the fleshing out of Apple’s software, the iPod and iPhone halo effect, are all part of their plan, and that plan is going very well.

 

21% consumer market share and 10% worldwide is nothing to sniff at – we’re winning the war against the great unwashed PC masses.

 

They, for various reasons, continue to stick with the outdated model of proprietary OS on open hardware, but constantly complain about the shortcomings of that model – it’s reliability.

 

Although we’re making great strides, this dinosaur will be difficult to kill, too many people’s jobs, lives and whole personalities are propped up by the Windows monopoly.

 

They have tried in the past to discourage the ignorant masses from choosing the Mac, but those reasons are becoming more difficult to justify.

 

The Windows OS, is not getting any better with each release – indeed quite the opposite, and they couldn’t care less about Vista.

 

The Windows OS, is still prone to viruses and malware and they’re fed up of constantly having to call their geeky friend or pay through the nose for an expert to fix their PC.

 

They have however noticed that the Mac OS, just gets better and better.

 

More of their (non-geeky) friends are recommending it.

 

They’ve been to an Apple store and been very impressed.

 

And guess what? They are ignoring their geeky friends advice and actually buying a Mac.

 

In the eyes of those whose very existence depend on the Windows monopoly continuing ad infinitum, this cannot continue, but the old tricks aren’t working anymore.

 

And so we come to plan B.

 

Call in all the favours, gather in all the shills, and start planting stories of companies switching away from the Mac – astroturfing, something that Microsoft are very good at.

 

So, please don’t click on this link, your life will not be any the richer because of it. Just see it for what it is.

 

The dinosaur to getting scared and is finally starting to contemplate a future that doesn’t include it’s influence.

 

Expect lots more articles such as this to follow…

There’s a very good reason why ‘it just works’…

 

More evidence (if any more were needed) that Windows users are delusional: 

 

Think before you click. 

The reason why they constantly spout this, “if only Apple would release Mac OS X for generic PC’s” crap is because they fail to understand the reason why Apple’s Mac’s are fundamentally more reliable than PC’s.

 

IT’S BECAUSE THE HARDWARE IS TIED TO THE SOFTWARE AND VICE VERSA. IT IS THE ONLY WAY TO MAKE IT ‘JUST WORK’.  

 

Windows users believe that if the OS maker (Microsoft) could just get the spec requirements right then a proprietary OS on open hardware could be made to be reliable.  

 

This is why they’ve stuck with Windows for so long, because they really do believe that Microsoft will, sooner or later get it right, if they would just spend more time bug fixing, working with partners etc.

 

Well, they can’t get it right, history has proved this and it’s finally looking, slowly at least, that some of them are starting to understand this basic concept:

 

IF YOU WANT A RELIABLE DEVICE, YOU MUST MAKE THE WHOLE WIDGET. 

 

And, in some cases this means maybe paying a little more, but believe me, having had several Mac’s at home, and controlling half a dozen Mac’s at work, with no significant down time in 6 years, it’s worth it.

In response to this pile of drivel…

  

Think before you click please 

Every reason over the years that stood in the way of a Windows user to switch has been shot down.

Can’t find anywhere to buy Mac’s? – Sorted with the new Apple Stores.

Mac’s use non-standard chips – sorted with Intel.

Mac’s haven’t got the exact software I need – sorted with dual booting or full-speed emulation.

No games – PC’s are on the way out for gaming, buy an XBox/PS3/Wii.

No, there’s only one thing left to shoot down, and that’s the army (and I mean ARMY), of Windows IT support people who still, to this day, recommend Windows over the Mac. We’re making some inroads with these morons and some are seeing the light, but we’ve only scratched the surface and there’s a long way to go.

I feel that we’ll have to wait until the die-hards retire or drop dead through over prolonged exposure to Stockholme Syndrone until we see the tipping point and Apple’s 1/2 point increases in market share start to accelerate.

The month of Apple bugs…

I started writing this blog to outline some of my personal experiences of the Apple experience, in the hope that I may shine a light on the reasons why people such as myself choose Apple whenever they can.

I rarely comment on wider Apple-related tech issues, because they are usually well documented already, on blogs and Mac-tech sites far more eloquently than I could manage.

But this time I feel that I’d like to air my views on a small group of people who have made the Apple-headlines recently.

I’ll briefly go into some history (as you probably, as a Mac-user, know the details of this extensively already).

Last year a group of security experts highlighted a potential security threat with Mac’s and their wireless capabilities. They showed a Mac being hacked over a wireless network.

Now, this is about as bad as it gets in terms of security, and the entire Mac web rose up in alarm.

But then cracks started to appear. They started with the fact that the hack did not occur with the built in wireless card, but a third party one. Now, most Mac-users clearly pointed out that you would not install any third party hardware as a perfectly good wireless card was already installed by default.

Okay, said the protagonists, but you can hack the Apple-card as well, we just won’t show you that bit.

Hmmm. Coupled with a remark that they would like to stub a lit cigarette out in Mac-users eyes, most of the Mac-web (and even the more neutral sites), brushed off this ‘threat’ as minor at best.

Fast forward to late last year, and these same ‘security experts’ proposed a media event entitled, “The Month Of Apple Bugs”, to highlight one Apple bug per day, thus proving that all Mac-users live in a dream world and they are just the people to shatter that dream.
It’s now approaching the end of that month and what has been the result? Well, a little mixed. Some of the bugs are serious (Quicktime & Disk Image bugs), some pointless (cause the application to crash), and some bizarre, (using third party applications with no connection to Apple).

I have no problem with them highlighting these bugs at all. I think the work they are doing is valid and needed.

I would argue that their precept (that all Mac-users think that the Mac is bulletproof), is deluded and is created by anti-Mac press trying to give us enough rope to hang ourselves with, but that’s really not my point.

My point, or points are:

1) The motivation to highlight these bugs in the first place is suspect, and

2) The execution in highlighting these bugs is downright dangerous and childish.

Their reasons for doing this work has never been sufficiently explained. It seems to me to be born out of a frustration with Mac-users. They seem to think that we are somehow deluded in our choice of Apple, and that the software that Apple writes is just as full of security holes as Windows (which is arguable). I think they’ve spent far too much time on digg and slashdot personally, and have an axe to grind.

Whatever their reasons, their execution is, as I’ve said, is dangerous and childish.

The way it usually works is this: you find a security vulnerability and you inform the manufacturer first, before releasing it to the public. You can add a time limit on to this if you want, but it’s good manners to give the manufacturer a little breathing space. Once the manufacturer has released a fix, you get a mention in the release notes – kudos to you.

That’s it. That’s all you get and that’s all you should want – public praise for your effort, which will increase your standing in the tech community. You shouldn’t want any more praise, because hey, this is all about helping and safeguarding users by informing the manufacturer of bugs and strengthening the OS isn’t it?

It’s not about your ego, is it?

The person that uncovers a previously unknown bug isn’t the bad guy, are they?

And here is where their execution stinks. Their execution, by not informing Apple before releasing the bug into the wild actually hurts the users, damages Apple, and only gives them more ammunition for their egos.

This is all about a childish attempt by a pissed off Windows user to get back at Apple users because for some reason, the fact that there are a few stupid Mac-users on Slashdot who keep on saying that the Mac is bulletproof, he feels it is his duty to stub a lit cigarette out in our eyes (metaphorically speaking).

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – Windows users are really screwed up people.

Showing the opposing view…

Recently I noticed an article entitled, “Is the iPod getting an unfair advantage in the marketplace?” on the Mobile Magazine’s website. It struck me at first as the usual FUD-spreading tripe that comes from the Apple-despising press, but upon further reading something occurred to me.

The article can be summarised in that the author found it unfair that the iPod was successful, and dismissed this success as somehow undeserved.

I obviously wanted to reply, but could not at first marshal my thoughts in such a way as to put across my point, but then it struck me. Please read on. What follows is the original article, followed by my reply. I think you’ll agree that it succinctly brings in to contrast the pointlessness of the article.

Is the iPod getting an unfair advantage in the marketplace?
As part of my regular duties for Mobile Magazine, I was poking around the other tech blogs on the internet, looking for interesting things to write about. I came across this post and it got me thinking: is Apple getting an unfair advantage in the marketplace, and that’s why Stevie Jobs holds three-quarters of the MP3 player market?

Think about it. Tech heads are a relative minority in the population, whereas people with a very minimal knowledge of technology probably make up the majority. Case in point: many people think that the iPod is the be all and end all of MP3 players. In fact, you’ll catch many people asking “What kind of iPod is that?” when you flash them a Sandisk Sansa or a Creative Zen. A large portion of the public think that “MP3 players” are a lesser form of the “iPod”, when in fact the iPod is an MP3 player (as I’m sure you know, given that you are reading this). This is following in the same tradition that taught people to refer to DVD players as simply a “DVD”. That irked me for the longest time.

What’s more, when you go to several online retailers, you’ll notice categories that read “iPods and MP3 players”, but never “Zunes and media players” or “Sansas and portable music players.” The iPod holds its own special shelf oftentimes too. I think it comes down to a chicken-or-egg question though: Are retailers simply responding to the average Joe who can only think of the iPod when it comes to portable music, or is it because stores do this that Joe Public thinks this way.

I’m beginning to think it’s the former and we can’t exactly blame Best Buy for featuring the iPod so prominently. After all, they just want to grab those sales. So, who can we blame? I’m looking at you, Cupertino.

Is Windows getting an unfair advantage in the marketplace?

As part of my regular duties for Mobile Magazine, I was poking around the other tech blogs on the internet, looking for interesting things to write about. I came across this post and it got me thinking: is Microsoft getting an unfair advantage in the marketplace, and that’s why Bill Gates holds three-quarters of the OS market?

Think about it. Tech heads are a relative minority in the population, whereas people with a very minimal knowledge of technology probably make up the majority. Case in point: many people think that the Windows OS is the be all and end all of OS’s. In fact, you’ll catch many people asking “What kind of Windows is that?” when you flash them a Macintosh. A large portion of the public think that “Windows” is a lesser form of the “Computer”, when in fact the Mac is an computer (as I’m sure you know, given that you are reading this). This is following in the same tradition that taught people to refer to DVD players as simply a “DVD”. That irked me for the longest time.

What’s more, when you go to several online retailers, you’ll notice categories that read “Windows computers”, but never Macintoshes & Windows”. The Windows PC holds its own special shelf oftentimes too. I think it comes down to a chicken-or-egg question though: Are retailers simply responding to the average Joe who can only think of Windows when it comes to a PC, or is it because stores do this that Joe Public thinks this way.

I’m beginning to think it’s the former and we can’t exactly blame Best Buy for featuring the Windows PC so prominently. After all, they just want to grab those sales. So, who can we blame? I’m looking at you, Microsoft.

Do you understand where Mac users are coming from now?

I think it’s poetic justice that Apple, at last are dominating a market that isn’t skewed in Microsoft’s favor because of an army of ‘tech heads’ that a)only recommend Microsoft and b)cannot stand it if Apple succeed in anything.

Sometimes the best way of getting your point across is to simply hold a mirror up to the situation at hand, showing the opposing view, but using their own words to illustrate your point.

The Zune…

Well. The Zune. What can be said that hasn’t already been said a thousand times?

It’s not very good.

It’s too big. It’s too brown. It’s too restrictive in its DRM. It’s too confusing to use (Microsoft points?). It’s too difficult to install. It’s just too, well, Microsoft.
To Mac users, this isn’t surprising. We all know that, given a level playing field, (not one where they can leverage their monopoly), Microsoft just cannot do anything well.

Everything they have ever produced has always stank to high heaven. Now, in the business world, this doesn’t matter. Geeks are very forgiving.

They will put up with the workarounds, hacks and make-do’s to get Microsoft products working, because a) their jobs depend on it, b) they actually enjoy being knee-deep in this shit, and c) because the alternative (using another OS), is just too frightening to bear.
But in the consumer world, Microsoft cannot get away with it. When, (as one reviewer was forced to do) you have to manually create and install a .DLL file, just to get the Zune software working, you realise that there is something deeply, deeply wrong at Microsoft.

In principal, they are still a computer company, and by computer company, I mean a company that sells to geeks, first and foremost.

They see, and treat your average joe consumer with contempt, just in the same way as the Windows IT tech support at the company you, dear reader, work at, do also.

Everything Microsoft does is soiled with this central, rotten core. “Our software doesn’t work perfectly, but don’t worry, the geek in the family/IT department will sort it out”.

Well, this central premise doesn’t seem to be working anymore for Microsoft. The Zune’s sales are not only disappointing, they’re terrible. It’s funny to see all the so-called independent blogs that Microsoft secretly set up, clamouring for any good news. Several of them are no longer being updated.

Apple, on the other hand, have always been the ‘company for the rest of us,” and their time has now come.

Time to buy Apple shares again.

The hatred of Justin Long…

In case you’ve being living under a rock for the past year, Justin Long is the ‘I’m A Mac’ guy in the recent spate of Apple adverts. He plays opposite John Hodgeman (I’m A PC’).

Now before I get into the gist of this article, I need to point out to those of you who just don’t get these ads, what their angle is. I come from a marketing background, so hear me out.

Apple Computer want to portray to the buying public the benefits of buying an Apple Macintosh Computer, over buying a Windows-based computer.

The problems in doing this are twofold:

1) As soon as joe public sees an advert with a complicated tech-device therein, their brain switches off. It’s just too difficult to portray the positive aspects of the Mac and the negative aspects of the PC in 30 seconds, and to hold your viewers attention.

2) Microsoft have done such a good job of lowering everybody’s expectations in what to expect from a PC, to the point that people just see them as a tool they replace every couple of years, that Apple has an uphill battle in getting people to feel passionate about computers, in the way that we all as Mac users already do. In order to switch a user, you have to make them care about their computing experience again, and make them realise that there is an alternative to the cycle of buying a computer, use it until it’s full of viruses, and then replace it with a new one or give it to your geeky friend to sort out.

So, what do you do to make computers more appealing? How do you subtly put across the benefits of a Mac, and the shortcomings of a PC, without going down the route of option 1 (simply showing a Mac with bullet points next to it?)?

You anthropomorphise them.

You turn the Mac and PC into a person. And every aspect of that person is personified in the computer. So the way the computer behaves becomes their personality, the way the computer looks becomes the person’s clothing, you get the idea.

Now with all of this in mind, it’s been interesting to see people’s reaction to the adverts.

First of all, a large percentage of PC viewers did not grasp the anthropomorphic stance of the ads, and were offended by them. The 2 people in the adverts denote the computers, not the users. Now you cannot blame the viewer for this, Apple obviously did not get their message across well enough, and they must try harder.

Secondly, the side effect of the PC being the butt of many jokes, made some viewers feel sorry for him, and because they did not get the fact that this person was NOT a manifestation of a USER, but the manifestation of a COMPUTER, they identified with him – they felt his pain.

And who inflicted this pain? Well, the only other protagonist in the advert – the Mac, or in their eyes, the Mac user.

This then explains some of the totally unwarranted verbal attacks on Justin Long. On a recent episode of TWIT, they discussed the apparent sacking of Justin Long by Apple, because he was coming under fire, and was seen as arrogant, smug and cruel.

Now this sacking has since been discarded as an incorrect rumour, but their discussion continued. One thing they all agreed was that Apple found it okay that Justin Long was coming over in this way, because that’s what all Mac users are like – smug, arrogant & cruel.

I was listening to this in the car at the time, and I physically staggered. How can anyone feel this way, and generalise over a group of people who they have never met?

Does Justin Long come over like this? I wanted to find out so I took a quick look at a selection of Apple ads on their website.

Well, after looking at them, and re-reading the scripts, I could find little or no reference to anything that Justin Long says that could be construed as being smug, arrogant or cruel. In fact, most of the time he comes across as quite understanding, kind and very neutral – to the point of being a little boring.

So why do PC users feel this way?

Well, I think it comes down to pride. Whether you get the anthropomorphic angle of these ads or not, what they are saying is, is that you, as a PC user have made the wrong choice in choosing Windows.

PC users are a delicate bunch, and I think Apple has not realised this, (or maybe they have and are just going for the jugular). As I have said in a previous post, whole careers, whole lives and whole personalities are built around the Windows monopoly.

Criticising their choice in Windows opens their flesh and bares the rawest of raw nerves, and strikes at the core of everything they believe in.

Justin Long has said little or nothing inflammatory, nothing rude, or condescending, go on – check for yourself. Nothing that would illicit the hassle he is getting.

I think what we are seeing, in the reaction by Windows users to these adverts, is a kind of reverse emotional response.

They see the truth, unvarnished, of what using a Windows PC is like, and they cannot accept it. They feel hurt and betrayed be Microsoft, but again, they cannot accept it – to walk away from Microsoft is too much of an upheaval for them.

So what do they do? they look for a scapegoat, someone to blame, someone who is responsible for all that pain, and, identifying with John Hodgeman, they blame Justin Long, and spout vitriol at him whenever they can.

Windows PC users are really screwed up, and they really do need to Think Different.

Demonstrating the gulf that divides us…

I’ve written long and hard of the battle that goes on every day between the PC camp and the Macintosh camp.

Like any conflict, it all boils down to each side failing to see the others point of view. Each side thinks that the others viewpoint is ridiculous and sortie after sortie is launched (on digg & macdailynews to name but two) in the hope of scoring some advantage.

Myself, being a hardened and battle-weary Mac-user for 15 years (although I started out, and continue to use Windows PC’s to this day), am constantly on the look out for aspects of this battle that simply put the foolishness of the Windows camp into simple, geek-free, easy to grasp terms.

Yesterday this was demonstrated to me in a way I had not experienced before.

As you may or may not know, I run an in-house, Mac-based marketing & design studio, that sits in a larger PC-based company, and we are currently in the midst of a departmental move.

I am to receive a shiny, new, larger office, with an additional member of staff, and my original office is to be converted into a PC-based office for 2-3 people to work in.
However, there is a transfer period that must occur. This has resulted in a PC user and her PC being shoe-horned into my already overcrowded workspace. But, it’s only temporary, some I’m not too bothered.

The PC-setup is not that complex, it’s a PC, running the latest version of XP, monitor, A4 laser printer and a separate fax machine.

Now, I know my way around a PC, (I have a couple of PC’s in the studio to access the Windows XP based stock database), and I certainly know my way around the Mac.

I set up this studio myself from scratch (much to the anger of the Windows PC department). It started out as a simple 867mhz G4 Mac, with monitor, scanner, external hard drives, A3 laser printer, A3 inkjet colour proofer. Since then I’ve added 3 more Mac’s (an 800mhz G4 & 2 G5’s), another A3 printer, and 2 A1 large format printers.

Everything works fine. I’ve had no reason to call in any IT support, and I’ve had 1 days downtime in 5 years, and that was to upgrade to Tiger.

Admittedly, I am an experienced Mac user. I know how to troubleshoot software, and my hardware experience only really equates to installing memory and adding internal hard drives. I certainly don’t know as much about the Mac’s hardware as the PC IT department knows about PC hardware, but then again, I don’t have to – it just works.

So, back to the PC in question. How long do you think it took the IT department to get this PC working?

Not half and hour (which would be my estimate if I were setting up a Mac), not an afternoon, not 1 day, not even 2 days, but 3 DAYS.
3 days.

At first, they brought the PC down to my department and tried to set it up. They couldn’t get the PC to see the monitor. After a couple of hours, the monitor was declared DOA.

A new one was brought in and worked fine.

Next Windows would not start. It would get as far as the log in screen and freeze. After another couple of hours it was removed and taken back to the PC department. I don’t know if they replaced it, swapped something out or hit it with a mallet, but the next day it was brought back and this time it got past the log in screen and to the desktop.

Next – the printer & fax. This took the rest of the day, and they got through half a ream of photocopy paper trying to get it working. At the end of the day it was.

The next day was connecting to the stock control system database. This is located in another part of the company, via a VPN connection.

Now, this VPN connection seems to be some sort of voodoo spell that is cast upon the company. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Our IT department has experienced people in it, but most of the time the VPN connection is beyond them and they have to bring in a consultant to configure it.

They tried to get the VPN connection working, but couldn’t. After 2-3 hours of phone conversations with the consultant it finally worked.

The PC operator can finally sit down and get some REAL work done, and clear up the backlog that has occurred because of this 3 day delay.

The key point to all this is however, is that the IT staff actually ENJOYED it, and got EXCITED about it. The problem of this malfunctioning PC brought joy to their faces. At one point, 3 members of staff were stood around this PC, shaking their heads and actively discussing this latest problem.

They failed to see the wider problem here – the PC should have worked, out of the box in the first place. Their systems should just work, if they are not, then a serious, wider problem is taking place.

Windows, as you all know, is a mess, and I always thought that IT staff saw this as a problem. They don’t. The morass of settings, config files, registry errors, all of which is a nightmare to those of us who do productive work for a living, is the part of the job that IT people enjoy. The chance to be knee-deep in this unproductive, labyrinth of crap that Windows users take for granted makes them salivate with lust – the chance to make themselves seem superior to those of us who have better things to do with our time, like making the company we work for some money.

I admit, this isn’t the norm. However, it’s not that rare either. I hear story after story from my company similar to this. It can take literally days to get any one troublesome PC working.

I’m not advocating a wholesale switch to the Mac, as there are many reasons why this isn’t practical (maybe I’ll talk about that in another posting), but this little anecdote demonstrates the viewpoint of your typical Mac user.

We see a world, in our little design studio’s, advertising bureau’s & printers where this doesn’t happen. Ever. The PC world constantly dreams of computing heaven where there are no crashes and everything just plugs in and starts working.

It’s not a dream, it’s already here and has been here for the best part of a decade now, it’s time for PC users to wake up.

Is Bill Gates trying to re-invent himself..?

I’ve just read David Pogue’s blog concerning Bill Gates at:

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=74

I cannot begin to write how much I disagree with his point of view – here’s a quote from it: “In fact, when you step back far enough, Mr. Gates’s entire life arc suddenly looks like a 35-year game of Robin Hood, a gigantic wealth-redistribution system on a global scale.”

All very nice, but he wasn’t stealing from the rich to give to the poor, he was stealing from me (I’m not rich), and all the other poor suckers that have had dozens of PC’s over the years, running buggy, second-rate hacked together code.

This buggy code has allowed him to release, year-after-year, an OS that is a magnet for malware, spyware, viruses etc, which in turn has funded drug barons & terrorists worldwide, AND IT IS HIS FAULT.

Giving away your wealth to help the poor is to be commended, but let’s not forget what this guy has done in the past before he was ‘reborn’.

His fifth rate OS has created more wealth for the evil people in this world than he has made for himself. No wonder he feels guilty.

This has nothing to do with him anyway, it’s his wife that has encouraged him to do it. He’s still the scummy little geek he always was, he’s now just a scummy little geek, who got lucky, and then guilty.

Where is Steve Jobs going with this?

Okay, it’s been a while, but after reading various viewpoints on the whole scenario of Bootcamp, Intel Mac’s and Apple’s true intentions, and after having commented on various forums about my viewpoints on the subject, I finally feel ready to get down on paper (well not paper exactly, erm… pixels maybe), what I feel is inside SJ’s head right now, and where he’s going with this.

I’ve thought long and hard, and those thoughts have been both positive and negative, and all the compass points in-between, but I’ve finally decided. Decided what? Well read on, but let me just say from the start that I am right, and you are wrong.

This article covers a lot. It covers Apple’s move to Intel chips, Boot Camp implications, Apple’s support (or lack thereof) of Windows XP, is Apple moving to Windows, adopting the Windows API, adopting the Windows Vista kernel and many other things in-between, so, it’s a ‘biggie’.

Apple’s move to Intel Chips – why?

The reasons for this were obvious. The Motorola/IBM team simply did not have the funds/will/intelligence to create a chip in sufficient quantities for Apple Computer to use in order to drive sales of the Mac, and to keep up with the Wintel camp. The mhz myth became the ghz myth and it was difficult to have to admit that maybe Intel had a point.

Although I think Steve Jobs’ plan from the start was to eventually move to Intel chips (the Marklar project is proof enough of this), he wanted to put it off for as long as possible.

Why? Well, Apple had to wait until they had decent emulation of the PowerPC chip, to ease the transition, and Apple was trying to encourage as many developers as possible to move to Xcode. They had been pushing this for years, way before Marklar was confirmed, and I think this is another clue that Apple had been planning to move to Intel eventually. The Xcode development suite started life at Next, and had always been binary compatible with Intel chips, and now, simply clicking a tick box compiles your app for Intel.

So you can argue the pros and cons of PowerPC/Intel, but I think it was inevitable. The recent problems that Sony is having with the Cell processor is proof enough that Steve Jobs was right. Apple are now in the enviable position of having a limitless supply of (relatively) cheap, fast chips. Historically, Apple have never been able to create Mac’s quickly enough to meet demand, now they can, it’s a win-win situation for them.

Boot Camp & Virtualization – why?

The inevitability of someone hacking the Intel Mac, in order to boot Windows was well, inevitable. What surprised everyone, was that Apple would come up with the technology themselves. The question is, did Apple plan this from the start, or did the quickly come up with this technology when they heard that some geek had hacked it together?

The answer is that this is all part of Apple’s long term goal.

Once Apple committed themselves to moving to Intel, then running Windows on Mac hardware was something they must have anticipated. They new that this was one of the aspects of the move that would have happened whether they liked it or not, so they must have planned to find a way to turn it to their advantage.

What is the advantage? Well, it all comes down to the series of decisions that any computer user must make when contemplating a switch. A PC user switching to Mac has to take into various costs, such as the move in hardware, software & peripherals.

This is why the switcher campaign did not return the numbers, peoples interested was captured, but on further investigation, they balked at the cost.

With the move to Intel, this has greatly smoothed the way. Hardware isn’t a cost anymore, they were going to buy a computer anyway, software cost has been lessened, because a lot of what the average computer user uses is already free on a Mac, and any software that isn’t can be run using BootCamp or virtualization which I guarantee will become part of Leopard. Peripherals have never been a problem anyway. Most USB based devices work out of the box.

For those of you who say that Mac’s are still expensive, then you are comparing bargain basement PC’s, or build your own – markets that Apple isn’t interested in. You cannot maintain the Apple experience on cheap or build your own PC’s, or maintain a decent profit margin.

Apple support (or lack thereof) of Windows

Apple will not stop you from running Windows on your Mac, they’ve even given Windows users an easy way to do it, but this isn’t because they are moving to Windows. It’s because it knocks away another reason that Windows users have cited as their reason for not moving to the Mac – can they run their Windows apps, just in case they don’t like OS X?

However, they will not support you, (maybe because the support calls alone would eat away at their billions in cash reserves in amount 10 minutes). They’ll let you to run Windows if you want, this is why they changed the name of the portables to MacBook & MacBook Pro – if you decide to run Windows, you are still reminded that you’re running Windows ON A MACINTOSH (it keeps the brand alive in their heads).

So why have they allowed this? Well in part, they couldn’t stop it, and it’s better to have a Windows user running Windows on a Mac reliably, instead of relying on a geeky hack that doesn’t work all the time. If Apple had not done this, and a Windows user installed Windows on a Mac using the geeky hack, any problems (and their would have been plenty) would be blamed on the Apple hardware, further damaging the brand in their eyes.
But Apple mainly did this because again, it’s all part of their grand plan. (More on this at the conclusion of this article).

Is Apple moving to Windows, adopting the Windows API or adopting the Windows Vista kernel – what?

This ball started rolling with Mr Dvorak. Other Mac users much more gifted than I have pointed out the flaws in this argument and pointed out that Dvorak and people like him know as much about technology as a cab driver knows about the Apple vs Apple court case, but let’s take them one by one.

Is Apple moving to Windows?

Avie (the guy who basically invented OS X) could not have left at a worse time. (Sometimes I think Apple does this because Steve gets a kick out of seeing users squirm – but it does create interest in Apple, so maybe THAT’S the point). Avie retired from active input at Apple years ago. This was just a coincidence.

Is Apple adopting the Windows API

No, nope, nein and every other way you can say something in the negative. It sounds easy – simply adopt the Windows API (call it the Red Box, Pink Box, Purple Box Environment if you like), and all Windows applications would run alongside Mac OSX, much like X11 & Classic apps do. Except it’s not easy, and although possible, it would take years of development (it took Apple 5 years to get Classic working and they own the source code), and even then most software would not work because there is no Windows API as such, most of it is hacks and undocumented hooks. So the Apple ‘it just works’ catchphrase would go out the window (no pun intended).

Is Apple adopting the Windows Vista kernel
Oh my god, somebody please shut Dvorak up! It just goes to show how little this guy understands computers, let alone why Apple has survived this long. His basic premise was that Apple could adopt Vista, and then simply run a Mac OS X ’skin’ on top. Like, yes that’s the difference between the 2 OS’s, the way they look.

Apple’s ‘reason for being’ is the tight integration between hardware and software. It’s the reason they don’t crash, why they’re stable, why they work, and yes, why they are a little bit more expensive. If Apple did this, they would basically become an EOL supplier of Microsoft’s OS, competing directly with Dell, HP and the others. Where does this leave the Apple ‘it just works’ benefit. Why would you buy from Apple? I wouldn’t, they’d be too expensive. They’d be dead in the water.

If Dvorak doesn’t even grasp this simple premise and see why his ramblings are not only wrong but embarrassing for a mainstream tech-writer then he doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously. Anyway the only reason he writes things of this ‘calibre’ is to drive traffic to his blog. Have you heard how many times he mentions it on TWIT?

Conclusion – so what is Apple’s overall plan?

All these things are connected. Apple does NOTHING on the spur of the moment, they plan, they scheme, they anticipate. Apple are profitable and healthy, the one thing that eludes them is market share, at least big gains in market share.

So this is all about attracting people to the Mac. Which people? Well there is a saying that says that if you grab somebody while they’re young, you’ve got them for life. So that means consumers.

Aren’t Apple interested in the enterprise? Well, yes and no. They’re interested in being a ‘good citizen’ on Windows networks, and playing happy with PC’s, but the real attack is at the enterprises of the future and that future lies with consumers, they are the enterprise of tomorrow.

So how will Apple do it? This is the plan, taking into account all that’s been said above:

1) Apple moves the current customer base from PowerPC to Intel hardware, moving the software at the same time, having very good emulation software built in.

2) Apple makes this move a smoothly as possible, so as not to alienate current, loyal Mac customers.

3) In order to counteract piracy, Apple creates a stable, geek-free way of running Windows on Mac hardware. Either using BootCamp or virtualization, this satisfies 2 types of new user:

a) Bootcamp users: These are users who want to move away from Windows, but dare not. This gives them a safety blanket in case they don’t like the Mac OS. They will, and within 6 months they’ll wonder how they ever put up with Windows.

b) Virtualization users: These are users who are fed up with Windows, and want to move to Mac but cannot because there is a piece of software that they must use on Windows. Within 6 months they will find a replacement or learn to live without it and use the Mac full time.

4) Apple’s market share starts to go up. It is irrelevant that some people who have bought a Mac just to run Windows, it will show as a Mac sale, much as in the same way that a PC user who buys a Windows PC and install Linux on it, still shows as a Windows sale.

5) Apple now has a significant number of new users who run Windows on a computer that can easily run Mac OS X AT NO EXTRA COST.

6) Apple then encourages them to switch by offering incentives that mean they must boot into the Mac, such as movie store that is tied into .Mac. (You would stream the movies from your account, to your Mac, but only if you run OS X), and by pushing the benefits of iLife, buy releasing new hardware, iPod related devices that leverage iLife, such as the iPhone. More controversially, they would either cancel iTunes for Windows, or make an enhanced version for Mac users. BootCamp users would not have a problem here, it would encourage them to boot more into the Mac.

7) Apple market share continues to climb.

8) Apple releases an update to XCode that allows you to compile the application you just wrote for the Mac, to run on Windows, (a specific hardware configuration only, probably teaming up with Dell or HP). Apple now controls Microsoft application development for all apps that have both Mac & Windows versions. Companies such as Adobe would jump at the chance because of the development cost savings, and new developers would contemplate XCode as a way of entering the new market of increasing Mac users, whilst still selling to the bread and butter market of Windows users.

9) Apple now controls a significant portion of Windows application development.

10) Apple buys Microsoft, closes it down and gives the money back to the shareholders. Windows IT managers around the world scream and hang themselves with used USB cables, their last words being, “Our pointless livelihoods have just been destroyed and we would have got away with it to, if it hadn’t been for those pesky kids at Apple computer!”

Okay, those last 3 were BS, (well except the bit about USB cables maybe, I went a bit Dvorak, you know, by doing about the same amount of research), but this seems to me to be a logical process that I would take if I were running Apple, all perfectly feasible, and it would grow market share.

Apple Launches ‘Get a Mac’ TV Ad Campaign…

Excellent, I like the virus one. When Vista comes out they need another one, exactly the same format, but with the PC guy wearing a colourful clown hat and loud tie.

Dialog could be:

PC Guy: “Hi, I’m a Mac”
Mac Guy: “Hi, I’m a Mac…. what?”
PC Guy: “Yeah sure, look I have this great hat, and really fashionable tie”
Mac Guy: “Erm, there’s a little bit more to it than that”
PC Guy: “Well of course, I also have these amazing devices that prevent me from getting an infection, look, I’ll switch them on”
Mac Guy: “Nothing’s happened”
PC Guy: “What?”
Mac Guy “I said nothing’s happened”
PC Guy: “Sorry can’t hear you, it’s not configured properly, let me try this…”
PC Guy collapses to floor, and immediately gets up again, saying “No I’m fine, fine, just great”
Mac Guy “So what’s changed?”
PC Guy “Sorry, can’t speak to you without the correct password”
Mac Guy “What?”
PC Guy “Thanks, OK are you sure you want to talk to me?”
Mac Guy “Well no, not really”
PC Guy “Are you really sure?”
Mac Guy “Go on then”
PC Guy “Thankyou.” He then sneezes and collapses on to floor.
Immediately 10 IT guys turn up and carry him away and replace him with an exact replica.
PC Guy “Hi, I’m a Mac”
The Mac Guy puts his iPod on.

These ads are a great metaphor, and communicate a complex topic easily and humorously.

Mactel… this changes everything…

Apple dropping the PPC platform and embracing Intel chips shocked a great number of people, and for several, quite different reasons.

Some people expected it all along. The Marklar project was one of the most talked about rumours for years, and although when you thought it through it did make sense, (Apple would have been very foolish not to have had this as a back-up plan), it still surprised numerous respected Apple commentators.

Next, (which is the OS that Mac OS X was based upon), was originally coded for Intel. Xcode is built from the ground up to be platform independent, (a simple tick box compiles you code for PPC or Intel) and Apple have been encouraging developers to embrace Xcode for years.

With these points in mind, in my opinion, Steve Jobs has been planning this ever since he came back to Apple. I think though that the failure of the PPC platform surprised even him. Failure? Yes that is a harsh word, but in terms of what matters, (i.e. consumer perception of your product), the PPC platform has been holding Apple back for years.

Yes, there are great things coming from IBM (apparently), but if the latest dual core chips are anything to go by, then all the old problems remain. We now have a dual core chip that is actually slower (in GHz terms) than the previous version. Yes I know it is faster in real terms, but try telling that to Joe Public. The portable version of this chip is non existent. Freescale just cannot deliver. Look at the latest offering for the Powerbook’s. For the very first time in the Powerbook’s history, there is NO speed increase in the latest refresh.

Freescale may have upped the speed a little if Apple had not announced the move to Intel, but I doubt it would have been by much.

No, what matters is speed & production volumes. IBM & Freescale do not have this and never will. Your only option is Intel and their roadmap looks very exciting indeed. Their speed increases look very impressive (especially for the laptops), and Apple will never have to worry about production volumes ever again.

One aspect of Apple that has astounded me, is that they cannot get their products produced quickly enough, there is always a holdup in getting chips from IBM, and they just cannot ramp up production quickly enough. Imagine how many sales have been lost due to this one annoying bottleneck. Imagine the lost sales and subsequent lost market share increase.

So, you can argue forever the finer points of IBM chips versus Intel chips, but it will happen anyway, we are all moving to Intel, and it looks like the transition will be swift and relatively painless now that Apple have decent emulation for the legacy PPC chip.

But the ramifications of this transition have not really been realised yet. Broadly speaking, is this positive or negative news for the Mac? Well I think it’s positive, very positive.

When Apple’s transition is complete and the whole product line has moved over to Intel and all major applications have been converted you will effectively have Apple branded hardware that comes installed with Mac OSX, all wrapped up in some sort of DRM that will make it difficult to transfer this OS to a standard Intel box.

You can purchase it as a normal Mac and not even realise that the chip inside is different.

You could if you wanted install either Linux or Windows on this Apple hardware and simply run it as you old Windows PC if you want, Apple will not prevent you (but they won’t support you either).

This isn’t as bad as it sounds because remember, it makes no difference what OS your running on this Mactel, the market share numbers will regsiter a Mac sale. I guarantee that a great number of Windows users will do this straight away (as I bet that the hardware will be very competitively priced) and Apple’s market share will skyrocket, even though a significant number of users will install Windows on it.

This will continue for a while until you have a situation where a large number of Windows users have hardware that is capable of running Mac OS X. All you then need to do to make these Windows users switch to the Mac, is convince them to move to the Mac partition – for free. This is much easier than it was before because there is no need to purchase new hardware or software.

But what will be the carrot to lure them to move to the Mac partition for good? One word – software.

This is why Apple has been beefing up its Applications Division since Steve Jobs took over. Apple make the best set of applications – bar none. the iLife suite, and their collection of Pro Apps are best of breed and will never be released for Windows.

This will encourage Windows users to come over, but the thing that will totally convince them is Office. Apple will either bundle Office with the Mactel’s or they will adapt Appleworks, cross it with the open source version of Office and bundle that for free.

And where is Microsoft in all this? Well they’ll be happy because they still get the OS sale and the Office sale (less happy if Apple release an Office competitor), but I’d worry more about Dell, HP & other hardware manufacturer’s. They are not in a very good position for future growth. Why would anyone buy their products when you can get similar priced hardware from Apple that runs more OS’s, more best of breed applications, looks better and is more reliable?

I look forward to the transition being complete and 5 years from now, the tech industry will look totally different. This really does change everything.

Keep it in the family…

It’s strange really, now that the Macintosh is part of my personal life as well as my professional, I’ve started to think of how computers affect my immediate family.
Previously, I was only professionally tied to the Macintosh from a work standpoint, and I didn’t take home the thoughts and computing bias that I clearly show at work.

I knew that some members of my family had computers, and I knew they were not Macintoshes, but it didn’t bother me. When these family members complained that their barely one year old PC was barely useable due to constant pop-ups & crashes, I just shrugged, smiled and kept my thoughts to myself by saying, “Sorry, but I use different computers at work, I haven’t a clue how to fix yours.”

But all that has now changed, and it’s changed for a specific reason.

Most of my family members bought PC’s because that’s what the staff at PC World told them to buy, they were not shown the Macintosh, they do not even know that the Mac even exists. As far as they are concerned computers mean Windows. I pity them, but I feel that it would be of little use to try and convert them to the Mac. Their view of computers is permanently tainted. As far as they are concerned, all computers act like this. When you do point out that there are other computing platforms out there, ones that are reliable, crash-free, virus, spyware & pop-up free they just look at you blankly, or if they know about the Mac, they scoff, giving all the usual FUD and misinformation.
You see, the Windows environment affects the user in 1 of 2 ways. The first lot simply accept the fact that this is the way computers act, and put up with it. They don’t wan’t to learn how to manage Windows because (quiet rightly) they’ve better things to do (such as actually using the computer). They expected their computer to be like their TV, simply switch it on and it should work. Add a printer from a different manufacturer should be as simple as adding a DVD player to a TV which is 10 years old. It’s a big disappointment to them when they realise this isn’t the case. The PC simply gets used less and less, until they replace it with a new one. They buy all the hype from Microsoft/Intel and part with their money yet again. They think (wrongly) maybe, just maybe ‘a computer’ will do all the things they say, and change their life for the better – this time. These users go back every couple of years, time and time again. The Wintel monopoly doesn’t care, because well, it’s a monopoly. A whole PC industry has built up around this simple process.

The second lot act differently. They actually try to fix their PC. For some reason it doesn’t occur to them that they were sold a faulty product. They learn about the intricasies of Windows, the registry, viruses, spyware, adware, trojan’s, patching their system etc.

Slowly they can coax their PC back to a semblence of useability. It’s during this period they learn of the Mac, usually from the PC press and their colleagues, and all the FUD gets laid down in their mind. This does tremendous good for their ego; they have triumphed over the complexity of Windows, they learn respect from their friends and they are brainwashed into believing that the Mac is a toy, and they DID make the right computer choice after all. Over time, this is what ‘using a computer’ means to them. They’ve forgot that they actually wanted to use it to create something. They become, for want of a better word, ‘a geek’.

In my family we have both of these types of users. The first type had a PC that was next to useless. It barely crawled along, it had constant pop-ups, porn sites would jump out at you every few minutes (for some reason). So what did they do with it? Instead of throwing it away, (or as they should do, take it back to PC World and demand that they replace the faulty goods with a real computer, i.e. a Mac), they sold it, YES SOLD IT, to my mother (78 years young), who has never used a one in her life and had heard about computers, email and the internet and wanted to simply ’surf’ to find holiday information and to send emails to her grandchildren.

Of course she quickly realised that the computer was next to useless and quite unbelievably offensive as well. When receiving a phone bill for over £200, we realised that there was some dial-up malware on it that was calling premium rate lines. Of course, other members of my family (the 2nd lot, the computer experts), jumped up and offered to fix it, using spyware removers, and all sorts of tinkering under the hood, but after several attempts, the computer is now a £200 doorstop.

Does this make me angry? Does this, as a Mac user who knows full well that my mothers first contact with computers has been tainted by the second rate rubbish that Microsoft offers? You bet your life it does. All she wanted was a simple computer to send emails, write letters and surf the internet. She didn’t want to learn all about maintaining it, she expected it to work. We all know that a Mac would have been a perfect choice for her. But because she’s surrounded by macho PC users, who want to sell her a crap PC, and want her to call them up when it needs fixing so that they can show her how clever her boys are, she’ll never get near one.

The relationship between my mother and her relations, the so called computer experts, mirrors the relationship the PC vendor’s have with their customers. They sell you something they know is defective, but they know full well you’ll have to come back to them to fix it, or have to replace it in a couple of years. It’s a great business plan.

Which brings me neatly back to the change of heart I have had concerning recommending the Mac. I owe it to my mother (and people like her) to show her that computers can be fun, useful and can change your life. Had she had a Mac, she’d probably be creating her own DVD movies by now, because that’s what the Mac does for us all, it’s so easy to use, it empowers you to create, whilst at the same time get’s out of your way to allow you to create. You don’t have to worry about maintaining it – that’s not what you bought it for.

But because of the PC, my mother now thinks all computers act like Windows does, just like all the other 95% do.

I’ve started to bring her round to the Macintosh way. It’s early days and she still doesn’t quite understand the differences between the Mac & PC, but as soon as I see a second hand iMac advertised I’m buying her one for Christmas. She’ll then be able to use a computer for the reason she wanted one, to surf the internet, write letters & send emails to my kids, and she will never, NEVER have to ask anyone for help when her computer breaks down, because it won’t. This is the reason why PC users hate the Mac so much, it takes the so-called experts out of the equation completely. It destorys the reliance that the geeks want us to have on them, and it destroys the PC vendors business plan. And that can only be a good thing.

Keeping IT under control…

About a decade ago I made a decision that changed my working life. No, I didn’t choose the Macintosh; that decision came almost a decade earlier, and has been a choice that has richly coloured my life ever since.

No, the decision that changed my life for a second time was to move away from the more traditional feeding grounds of the Mac, such a advertising agencies, printers & imagesetting bureaux, and towards areas where the Mac was making inroads into larger, Wintel-based companies.

After the slow-down that hit the UK advertising industry in the mid-nineties, I decided that I couldn’t base my career around such a unpredictable & volatile industry, where losing one client could mean the company cutting it’s wage bill in half.

I took a job working for an ‘in-house’ studio, as part of a larger PC-based organisation, and in the following years I have worked for several companies, but all of them have followed this ethos. By and large, this working environment is much more agreeable, and has allowed me to relax and plan a future for myself and my family.

I say agreeable, but there has been one aspect of this arrangement that has proved irksome – IT departments.

I have many a horror story to tell of my dealings with stubborn Windows Managers, too many to go into here, but I must make a clear distinction of who I am talking about. By Windows Managers I am talking about people in a business setting who have had no contact with the Macintosh or Mac-people whatsoever, and whose only reference to Macintosh are the odd sarcastic article in PC magazines. I in no way refer to the countless numbers of Macintosh IT Managers who in my experience do an excellent job of managing Macintosh & Windows based networks.

I always gave Windows Managers the benefit of the doubt, thinking that the Mac-hating attitude that they’d so often dish out was simply an isolated incident, and didn’t reflect the wider opinion of IT professionals and Network Managers. However, having looked back over 3 or 4 separate companies of which I have worked for, and the opinions and attitudes of the IT staff therein, I’m beginning to see a pattern.

When a particular company first decides that it makes business-sense to bring their design & repro in-house, they are at a loss as how to approach it. What tends to happen is they bypass the usual avenues for buying IT equipment, i.e. they don’t approach their IT department. They ask their current provider for advice, be it a design house, printer or consultant. They will recommend the industry-standard – the Apple Macintosh. Then recruitment begins, and it’s usually these recruits that set the whole studio up. As you know, the Mac’s so straightforward, this is just a matter of a couple of days.

Then the problems start. Usually you need some information from IT, in order for the Mac to integrate into the PC-network. IP addresses, SMB printer file-paths, email, internet, proxy settings, the list goes on and on, and it’s here where I usually hit a brick wall, (with a Windows logo on it).

What follows are endless arguments, one-sided discussions and vitriol on their opinion of the Macintosh, which I try my best to avoid getting involved in. This exact scenario has happened on more than one occasion, and it begs me to ask the question, ‘why?’, and I think I have an answer.

The reasons for this are quite simple, and in the UK at least (which has to be the anti-Mac world-capital) it seems to be hard-wired into these people. They have spent their entire working lives keeping Windows stable and operational. They know nothing else. Most don’t even know that the Macintosh exists, and of those that do, they would never contemplate recommending them, and thought that in their working lives at least, they’d never have to go near one.

IT underpins businesses of all kinds; the bigger the business, the more powerful they become. Company Directors become slaves to their IT departments, and they slowly begin to lose control of the company that they run. All business decisions at some point must be run through IT, if IT thinks it’s a bad idea then it won’t happen.

Slowly but surely, this power starts to go to their heads. When Windows decides that it’s not going to work, whole companies grind to a halt. Then a multitude of IT staff crawl out of the woodwork like ants, swarming over each computer, re-setting it all up, while the company is paralysed, losing money every second. On asking what has gone wrong, or how long will it take until things start working again, you at worst get a mumbled grunt, or at best get a cacophony of gibberish of what has happened. They feel powerful, wanted and they are in control. How many times has this occurred in your company?

Occasionally, amongst all of this chaos sits a lone Macintosh studio. A simple set-up, just four or five Mac’s, monitors (colour managed), fast colour laser printer, slower colour accurate proofer, scanners, tape-back up and maybe a small server, with a smattering of external hard drives & digital cameras. It works, all the time. No down-time, no glitches, no errors (at least none that cost money). When the Windows server goes down, the Mac-studio continues without a hiccup. You even get other people in the office coming to you to print their Word, Excel or Powerpoint files for them, because the Windows network isn’t working or their printer keeps eating their jobs. To make matters worse for IT, Mac staff (horror of horrors!) also know how to install applications, they know how to troubleshoot printing problems, manage their fonts and their systems, and what’s worse; they are allowed to!

IT staff feel impotent, unwanted and not in control in Mac-situations. They just don’t ‘get’ the Mac, and why should they? If they did they’d realise they’d be out of work. Had they
been involved at the out-set, Mac’s wouldn’t have been allowed in the company. A standard Wintel-box would be recommended, just like the accounts department. They might not understand reprographics, but they do know what’s best for the company that they control. They make the fatal mistake of assuming because they know computers in a business setting, this somehow gives them an insight into computing for specialised industries. They don’t like the idea that somebody in the company knows more about computers than they do, or has a more powerful computer than the Windows Manager – this gives them cold sweats in the middle of the night.

‘Colour-management’, they’d say ‘what do you need that for?’

‘Back-up?’ they’d retort, ‘you don’t have to worry about it.’ (Until you need a file that you’ve accidentally deleted, and you have to wait days to get it back because they’re too busy).

‘Colour-proofing? Use the companies colour-laser like the other 400 staff have to.’

‘Server? What do you need that for? use this soulless Wintel box like everyone else.’
I once even had a Windows Manager state that the studio shouldn’t be allowed to accept files from outside the company, in case they contained a virus! Having then pointed out that this was the way the department made money, by printing clients files, he quickly relented.

It all boils down to one word, ‘CONTROL’. They control the company, anything that jeopardises this cannot be allowed to happen. The Macintosh suddenly introduces a variable in the company they have no jurisdiction over.

All of this may sound extreme, and I expect a lot of you, even Mac users, & especially in the US, will say that this diatribe is a load of biased rubbish. But things are very different here in the UK. Getting an Apple Mac into a company that isn’t graphics oriented is near impossible. Anti-Mac bias is all around you, on the TV, (the BBC is the worst), newspapers, (IT specials regularly trash the Mac), in computer stores, (PC-World staff have to be seen to be believed), banks, (try online-banking and you’ll be amazed at how you’re treated as a paying customer), and even the government, (try to fill out on-line tax forms).

If Apple want to succeed in the UK, they need to approach things very differently here. My experience is to bypass IT completely, you haven’t a hope in selling to them. Concentrate on the real people who run the company, the Directors. In my experience they just want the best solution to the problem, and in the area of reprographics that will always be the Macintosh.