“Get a Mac! There. I hope all you Apple crazies are happy now and WILL STOP E-MAILING ME! Sheesh. Last week, I wrote about a virus giving a lobotomy to my Windows XP home computer. I got more e-mail about that column than any other, ever,” Kevin Many writes for USA Today. “The comments generally split into two camps:
– People who have Windows PCs and wanted to commiserate.
– Mac zealots who swarmed over my sad story like ants on a dropped Popsicle, all on a mission to ‘save’ this allegedly misguided Microsoft captive. Now I know what it would feel like to wander into a Branch Davidian convention. Or to be a Democrat trapped in a room with Zell Miller.
“Taken together, though, the two kinds of responses raise a point: This virus and security problem might be the biggest challenge to Microsoft in years,” Maney writes. “The message I get is that people are fed up with the vulnerability of Windows. They are increasingly willing to consider other options. And, for whatever reasons, Apple Computer’s Macintosh and Linux-based computers hardly get infected or invaded at all,” Maney writes. “Cultishness aside, though, people are switching because of the security issue. In Austin, computer consultant Brad Hudelson was once a high-level manager at Dell, the leading maker of Windows PCs. Hudelson says he ‘gave up after Sasser (virus attacks) last year and replaced all my machines with Apples and Mac OS X.'”
Maney writes, “Physician Thomas Essman switched for the same reason. So did Bryan Crawford, a biology professor at the University of Alberta in Canada. ‘I’ve been in computer heaven ever since,’ Crawford says. Here’s a particularly good one: Daryl Forrest is a developer of software for Windows. ‘I have moved all non-work-related computing to a new Apple Power Mac G5,’ he writes. ‘I like Windows XP, but the risks are too high these days. It’s sad that it has gotten to this.’ On and on it goes, one e-mail after another… Microsoft should be worried. It apparently has a lot of frustrated users out there.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Maney blows it a bit in the end by writing, “Microsoft hasn’t done anything particularly wrong; the hackers are the bad guys. Blaming Microsoft for not building in safety measures is a little like blaming Florida for being in the path of a hurricane.” Of course, anyone who’d think to substitute General Motors for Microsoft in this scenario can see that Microsoft most certainly should be accountable (imagine the lawsuits if GM-made cars were careening off roads whenever a mosquito hit the windshield). Still, dare we begin to believe that the light is suddenly finally shining upon the masses with stories like this now cropping up daily in mass media outlets?
Related MacDailyNews articles:
The Motley Fool: Windows viruses, Apple iPod’s ‘Halo Effect’ may drive switch from Windows to Mac OS X – September 21, 2004
Gartner VP: Windows is the biggest beta test the world has ever known – September 20, 2004
Windows besieged by hackers; number of Windows viruses soars by more than 400% – September 20, 2004
Review: Windows XP SP2 ‘remains leaky, profoundly unsafe on the internet’ – September 17, 2004
Wall Street Journal’s Mossberg: ‘The single most effective way to avoid viruses and spyware is to simply chuck Windows altogether and buy an Apple Macintosh’ – September 16, 2004
It’s finally happening, folks!
lies, all lies, Just ask Mary.
And, for whatever reasons, Apple Computer’s Macintosh and Linux-based computers hardly get infected or invaded at all.
MDN didn’t point this out, but the “for whatever reasons” is something we all know about. WinDOS has more holes than a collander, but you know WinDOS supporters will keep bringing up the old security through obscurity myth, even though it’s been thoroughly debunked. And “hardly…at all”? As in NEVER?
I can’t wait to see what marketshare numbers look like after the holiday season….and beyond!
Don’t forget, today is “send three emails to Kevin Maney day.”
Oh and Ed: the Microsoft beholden press will report that Apple’s market share has declined to less than 1% ins spite of all the anti-Windows, pro-Mac press.
As Disraeli said, “there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
I think Maney would be surprised to see how quickly Switchers become “zealots” after using the Mac for a while. When I wrote him I suggested he try one out for a month or two.
Linux based computers?
“Now I know what it would feel like to wander into a Branch Davidian convention. “
How creative. The typical Mac marginalizing schtick. His parents must be proud he has a job a McPaper.
Just for the record, I am not a “Zealot,” “ant,” or “on a mission.”
I was just wrote to tell him about my experience. Why did he feel the need to put down people who use Mac’s?
” Blaming Microsoft for not building in safety measures is a little like blaming Florida for being in the path of a hurricane.”
Wow. With logic like that I wonder how he did on his SAT’s.
Quote from the article
{{{The costs to switch to the Mac “are huge and potentially career-threatening for most CIOs,” says Peter Kastner, analyst at consulting firm Vericours. “No one has lost their job for keeping Windows.”}}}
If the cost of buying a Mac is “career-threatening” then your not making enough money. Or maybe you are afraid of getting some work done?
Imagining the scene from Men in Black…
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs at an OS convention…
so Steve turns and says to Bill “The difference between you and me? I make this look good”.
Here’s hoping OS X doesn’t get in the same situation with security (yes, I know that Unix is inherently more secure, but with more people hammering it… who knows what could be found.)
Steven Georges..
Totally agree..
Macs arent even that expensive.. haven’t we tread down this road before..???
No way in hell would a company cry about firing a fleet of IT geeks…
Right..?
Right…?!
Can someone please do their damn homework out there in BigDickTech Inc.?
“If the cost of buying a Mac is “career-threatening” then your not making enough money. Or maybe you are afraid of getting some work done?”
though i agree with you on a personal level, he was refering to CIO’s changing a company’s computing platform. $3k for you may be no big deal, but multiply that times 300, plus another $400×300 for office, and write off the $25k you spent on exchange, etc, etc….. you spend that kind of cash, and things don’t go perfectly, your company will be looking for a new cio in no time……
but, that being said, i recommend every new employee at my company get a mac….. we are now 50/50
Maney�s illogical and condescending remarks give me the impression he lacks the objectivity and intelligence to provide the reader with anything more than drivel. I�ve read more informative literature from the sides of cereal boxes.
Saddly, PC users, such as Kevin Maney, cannot possibly imagine the joy Mac users express for being able to actually get work (or play) done with a computer that doesn’t get in the way. PC users are totally unfamiliar with this level of joy and in a height of jealousy, they call Mac users cultists.
Using a Mac brings the joy of daily living that computer engineers and science fiction writers with foresight have promised since the 1960’s; since Star Trek was first released.
For PC users, this is still a fantasy. A fantasy struck down by viruses, adware, and incompatible software all being orchestrated by a operating system so complex as to exceeded the ability of its own creator to fully understand it.
You can spend your days either in a state of constant worry or in a state of joy through an uninterrupted chain of success. Perhaps to PC users, Mac users do seem to be on ‘shrooms; the Mac users relaxed carefree attitude isn’t “natural” in the computer world. They MUST be on something or else it is mind control, a cult.
Just as difficult as it is to describe color to someone that has never seen, to describe the joys produced by using a Mac to a avid PC user would be futile.
I don’t think it’s a cult when a group of people all enjoy the same experience. The cult is when a group of people are in pain and remain there because they believe the myths that the one inducing the pain is telling them. They know there is a way out, but they willingly remain under the control of the abuser, and believe the greatest myth “If everyone else is here, it can’t be too bad.” Who’s in the cult?
Aaahhh… with some people, it’s like bashing your head against a wall – today at work, I happened to comment to a young fellow how boring and useless the generic pc and OS (NT) on my desk are. He stared at me blankly and asked what was wrong with it. I suggested he equate it to a rather ugly girlfriend with no personality. He still didn’t get it. I then suggested that if you have to look at it all day, it may as well be pleasing to the eye, right? ‘I guess so’ was the reply.
I think they [pc users] deserve what they get.
>>Just for the record, I am not a “Zealot,” “ant,” or “on a mission.”
I was just wrote to tell him about my experience. Why did he feel the need to put down people who use Mac’s?
Unless you are the only person who wrote to him, I’d like to see the other letters he received from Mac users which set him off.
The European Ryder Cup team must have been care-free Mac users. Where does that leave the US “team”?
This month alone I have switch 8 people and I still have a week left…. Shooting for ten by the end of September…
BTW it is geating easier to convince people to switch
Comment: From: Mo, Sep 21, 04 | 10:33 pm
“
I think Maney would be surprised to see how quickly Switchers become “zealots” after using the Mac for a while. When I wrote him I suggested he try one out for a month or two.
“
Yep. I have become one too.
(site pimping)
http://www.happymakinggames.com/switch
and my “Oh no I’m a Zealot!” entry:
http://www.happymakinggames.com/switch/2004/7/25/25.html
What has made Mac userer “Zealots” or “Cultists”? There are a lot of companies out there who produce good, reliable products, but none of these share the rock-band status that Apple has. Any negative press is immediately rebutted by us Apple-heads and in no other product field does this happen.
There are some out there who would argue that Apple has a marketing strategy that leaves a lot to be desired, but if you look at the overall successes of marketing, the one strategy whgich is by far the most successful is by word of mouth.
Now, can this Apple fanaticism really be a product of chance, or does it not seem deliberate on Apple’s part? Did Apple have a looking glass in the 90’s and could they predict this turn of events � Microsofts popularity snowballing to virtually zero � and decided to let the “Zealots” do the selling when the time was right �as in now?
Do the math: If an Apple user convinces only 2 other PC users to switch every month, and these in turn convince others, then with a current estimate of 20 million Mac users � and lets reduce that figure to 5 million � the number of switchers should exponetially increase so that within 6 months there should theoretically be 2.4 billion mac users. Obviously this is a bit optimistic and impossible, but it just goes to show, that Apple has the best marketing strategy ever devised.
Please note, that I did this calculation in my head, and I just may be wrong, but nevertheless, the numbers are mindboggling
I think this whole “zealot” thing can be fairly easily explained by the old maxim “The Masses are Asses”.