Apple MacBooks show up at HP analyst meeting

19 years ago

“I was at the Hewlett-Packard analyst’s meeting today and a funny Mac-related thing happened. I happened to sit right behind a four people folks from Soleil-Cross Research, three of whom were typing notes on MacBook Pros,” Arik Hesseldahl reports for BusinessWeek.

Hesseldahl reports, “Now if you’ve never been to a meeting full of Wall Street financial analysts, let me tell you this: Seeing a Mac in the room is a rare thing. It’s a PC fest, full of Windows-running Dells and Thinkpads and so on. But as you probably know, MacBook Pros stand out, prominently showing their lit Apple logo right on the lid for all to see.”

“Later during a Q-and-A session with CEO Mark Hurd, Shannon Cross asked Hurd a few questions, her MacBook Pro caught his eye. ‘That notebook you’ve got there is a challenge to us,’ he said, adding that he’d be sure to send someone down to see her later to talk about HP notebooks,” Hesseldahl reports.

Hesseldahl asked Cross about her notebook of choice, “‘My problem isn’t with HP notebooks,’ she said. ‘It’s with Microsoft.’ Concern about viruses, spyware and the many hours of lost productivity that derives from them was the reason for her choice.”

Full article, including the “arrogant comment” to Cross from the sales guy that Hurd promised to send, here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Macaday” for the heads up.]

MacDailyNews Take: If HP notebooks had any style, we wouldn’t have much of a problem with them, either. The problem is the operating system. Microsoft inflicted garbage on the world and years later still does little to try to improve the situation. The operating system is not supposed to be worked on constantly by users. The operating system is supposed to serve its users invisibly. The operating system is not supposed to feel like it’s designed by some dyslexic engineer with a nasty habit of poorly copying Apple. The operating system shouldn’t require a manual for its users to accomplish the basics. The operating system is not supposed to exist in order to support a vast economy of technicians, anti-malware software houses, support staff, etc. The operating system is not supposed to waste time and energy, it’s supposed to aid its users to be as productive as they can be. It’s so nice to have an elegant, intuitive, powerful, secure, and fun – yes, fun – operating system. We want to use our computers, not fight them. With Apple’s Mac OS X, we’re lovers, not fighters.