“Woe unto anyone who publicly questions the efficacy of Macintosh computers. You will be set upon by the cult of Mac users. They will call you names. They will tell your boss that you should be fired. They will write long letters and e-mails detailing the history of home computers. I know this because last week I wrote a column supporting the Sarasota County school district’s decision to phase out Macs and replace them with PCs,” Rich Brooks writes for The Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
“The column did not criticize Macs, but pointed out that with 97 percent of the home computer market going to PCs, phasing out the Macs was a no-brainer. Nevertheless, this seemed to offend the Mac cult. Since the column appeared last week, I have received roughly 700 e-mails from such faraway places as Great Britain and Australia chastising me for even suggesting that the school district made the correct decision… Some asked the publisher to end my journalistic career,” Brooks writes. “Other than the personal attacks, the e-mails contained several common threads. Purchasing computer equipment for a school district is a matter of public policy, not personal preference. If more than 95 percent of the students with home computers operate on a PC platform, it makes sense for the school district to use the same platform.”
“And it’s more cost-effective for schools to maintain one type of computer platform. Writing that Macs should be phased out of the school system is not an attack on Macs or Mac users,” Brooks writes. “Even so, I doubt that I would ever buy a Mac. I’ve seen what owning one can do to people. And I don’t want any part of that.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Mr. Brooks is confusing quarterly market share with installed base; two very different measures. Market share figures for the last quarter are not an indication of how many people are using different platforms. The Mac platform has about 10% of the installed base. It only stands to reason that 10% or thereabouts of Sarasota’s students have a Mac at home. Teachers should be using cross-platform applications, so that all students can participate fully. How cost effective is it to standardize on a single platform that also happens to be most susceptible to virus, worm, and other attacks that can render the entire installation unusable? Why standardize on Windows when studies show that Mac installations require far less technical support? Mr. Brooks is wrong on this issue. Teachers, educators, school board members, IT professionals and any business or individual who is making a Mac/PC decision have a valuable resource online in John Droz’s Mac vs. PC website here.
Related MacDailyNews article:
Techno-illiterate columnist advocates dumping Macs in schools for Windows ‘compatibility’ – December 01, 2004
Windows XP Service Pack 2 causing major headaches on college campuses – August 24, 2004
More people use Apple Macs than you think; 8-12 percent of homes use Macs – March 31, 2004
Pennsylvania school district’s PCs infected with virus; their Macs unaffected – October 01, 2003
Montana school district’s Windows computers offline due to worm; Macintosh computers unaffected – September 03, 2003
More schools experience Windows virus, worm problems while Macs just keep working – August 22, 2003
A tale of two school systems: Windows schools crippled while Mac schools unaffected – August 21, 2003
The guy is a poofter…his mother was a hampster and his father smells of elda berries…
Sigh.
And once again all he can do is react to the extreme responses he got, instead of actually trying to learn something.
Sad.
He’s got a point about all the hate mail though. Windows sucks big time, and we Mac users should spread the word positively, instead of attacking people whom we disagree with. I know windows trolls do the same thing, but we should be a cut above, just like the platform we use.
Joe
I already wrote him, but The problem is that so many mac “faithful” get upset and threaten and swear and generally act like idiots and we look more like a “cult” than happy consumers.
so says I, Buffy, highpriest of the G4 =P
just forget him he seems too stubborn and unwilling to change his viewpoint. Is this page turning out alright on other people’s browsers, on mine it has a large white gap between the title and body, and the body itself is one large hyperlink. (I am using Panther, latest version of safari on an 12″ iBook.) If this website is an indication of their “computing knowledge” then I think trying to persuade them otherwise would be futile.
feeze…
Just a suggestion…. but you could try using the “Reset Safari” menu item … then … if youre not already using it… try.. <a >this</a>
Figures. I wrote the guy pointing out the inaccuracy of the column. I was touting the advantages of a cross-platform system for everyone to use.
And although there are some Mac Zealots out there who sound like idiots when they emote about the platform, this dude is obviously just doing what most Mac-ignorant fools do. They just brush off the emails with the “oh, they’re just a crazy cult” response. Look, if you bashed TiVo, do you think you would get some angry emails of TiVo users who think you gave wrong facts? “TiVo users are just a cult. I don’t know why they have a problem with me saying that VCRs are the better way to go.” How about picking Ford over Chevy? Cingular over Sprint? California over Florida?
His journalism is lazy. Unfortunately, with most lazy journalists, they’re also arrogant and unable to accept that they’re less than perfect.
uhhhh…. sory for the syntax error…heres that link again
“just forget him he seems too stubborn and unwilling to change his viewpoint.”
He doesn’t have to change his viewpoint, but he should know enough about the subject to make valid arguments. So he has either not researched his subject, or he really is on a platform crusade. (The very thing he accuses of the Mac crowd.) The facts are against him on everything he said.
> His journalism is lazy. Unfortunately, with most lazy journalists, they’re also arrogant and unable to accept that they’re less than perfect. <
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A pith of wisdom hits the nail on the head
We all know there are a lot of “lazy” tech writers out there who may or may not be on an Anti-Mac crusade… and everytime something disparaging is written about our platform of choice… a flood of emails ensues from the “Mac-Cultists”….
But how do you answer someone making ..This particular point ??
Anyone ??
Caesar, in response to your comment:
What, exactly, IS the right response to “F- you F- you F-you…?” Is there truly something to be learned there, aside from how NOT to get a real point across?
whatever, everyone will get by in the end, and i dont think this guy is a tech writter; hes just some opinion dude, and i wont fault him for that. everyone has an opinion, his just sucks.
i take issue at being called a cult member though. you can argue why the school should adopt a windows platform but resort so unfounded categorizations because your position is weak. and by the way, your son is on crack, there is no way kids stay after school to write papers because the computer at home is different from the one at school.
did i just make an unfounded categorization? perhaps. but then im not a professional and i sign things “yankees suck.” so if your comparing yourself to me, ditch the wirting thing and become a rubish collector
At least this guy can claim some ignorance to the facts about Macs, what is MDN’s lame reason for DUMPING OSX FOR LINUX as your server?!! FSCKIN’ HYPOCRITES!!!
MDM switched to save money. Don’t like it, buy them an Xserve.
mac dood:
Try this little tidbit:
< http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/hacking/2004-11-29-honeypot_x.htm >
Turns out that OS X gets hammered just as often as Windows. It just won’t break.
Interesting comments on the link. One school is the “We’ve got windows, and we’re keeping it, and I wish all these cultists would dry up and blow away.” The other (sensible) school points out the very real weaknesses of Windows and IIS. A simple Google search shows opinions on IIS that are somewhat different than Mr. Ou’s.
“Purchasing computer equipment for a school district is a matter of public policy, not personal preference.”
I completely agree with this sentiment.
He however confuses what is in the public interest. His argument is essentially: support the monopoly because, as we all know, monopolies are better and cheaper. However, right off the bat, history doesn’t bear that out — in any case I can think of, monopolies have turned out, in the long run, to be dramatically less efficient.
Here’s the public interest case:
1. COST
PCs are higher cost for maintenance (more frequent), more frequent upgrades, technical training, security, and viruses.
I agree, a mixed-platform solution has some extra costs, but it’s not clear that a 10% PC – 90% Mac solution is higher cost than an all-PC solution, as you’d only need a small amount of the higher-cost PC support. Nevertheless, his logic does lead inevitably to the compelling prospect of saving the public lots of money with an all-Mac solution.
Finally, with a non-competitive preference for Windows technology, why wouldn’t Microsoft raise their prices consistently over time?
2. EDUCATION
I believe students are best educated about technology if they learn to work with multiple platforms. The current computing platforms aren’t going to be the ones that elementary school students use when they go to work anyway, so they should learn flexibility.
I also believe that history demonstrates the Mac best prepares students for the technology that will be used in the future.
3. SOCIAL GOOD
You can’t possibly argue that as a government and society and capitalist economy that the world is better by supporting a single dominating monopoly. No, I believe government policy should always be multi-vendor.
Some argument should be made, as well, for open source solutions, as being appropriate ways to save public resources. I don’t think Linux is ready for prime-time, with much higher training costs, but OpenOffice, for example, seems a wise option to consider.
If MDN can abandon the Mac to save money, why shouldn’t the schools?
Brooks makes a valid and perfectly reasonable point: dumping Macs will save money. If the school is currently maintaining Macs and PCs, then maintaining PCs only will cost less.
It’s possible to argue against his point, but I doubt any of you even tried. Instead, you sent him hate mail or told him how great Macs are, or how cross-platform is doable or preferable.
You’re all to fanatical to submit a proper argument. No wonder Brooks just dismisses the entire Mac community.
For the record: Tivo owners would not send hate-mail to a columnist who gave a bad review. Nor would PC owners. The Mac-cult is unique in it’s militant hatred of non-cultists (unique in the tech world, anyway)
Thank goodness he will never be a Mac user. From what I have seen from 80% of Windows users, I would not let them on a Mac. I have actually seen a woman be terrorized from the Mac. Computers are not supposed to be easy. Join the crowd and buy windoze. Helps me out compete these guys.
Oh heavens, we’ve just heard from the Rush Limbaugh of the PC world.
Quick, quick some save KennyLucius he needs helps he actually thinks this guy is right!
I wrote him a quite civilized letter explaining how Macs are compatible with PCs, and how you can quite easily use a Mac at school and a PC at home. But I knew he’d be flamed a lot too …
Re: Road Warrior, I was helping a workmate decide between a Toshiba laptop and a PowerBook a coupla years back. Despite my advice he settled on the Toshiba.
When I mentioned Windows in a later conversation he said, “What’s Windows?”
When it comes to computing platforms, I think the majority of consumers don’t know and don’t care.
I’m insulted that Rich Brooks never made mention of the hundreds of nice pro-Mac emails he received… including my own.
When the man trolls, he should expect to get the crude responses he did.
Oh, no need to mince words about the facts when writing to pro-Windows people, but instead of spewing extreme or obscene words to express those thoughts would have given Brooks nothing to write about in his subsequent article.
On the other hand, writing with style and panache would make Steve Jobs proud.
Tiggy,
I should have qualified my statement about Brooks learning something – clearly you read two extra words I didn’t write there at the end of that particular sentence – namely,”from them.” – but I didn’t write those words. My intent was to point out his unfortunate lack of research on his subject matter – rather than focusing on whatever number of “f-you” e-mails he got, which he used to off-handedly dismiss every single message he got that was “pro-Mac”.
Sorry it wasn’t more obvious. To you, at any rate.