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Friday, February 22, 2002
09:28 - Is this how easy it's become?
http://www.macnet2.com/opinion/kyle/index.shtml

(top) link
Kyle Hanks on MacNETv2 has a column describing his recent experience with a die-hard PC user friend who heard about the "Microsoft playing Big Brother with Windows Media Player" debacle that I talked about yesterday-- and decided that Microsoft had gotten caught being indefensibly evil for the last time. He decided, voluntarily, after years and years of considering Macs to be irrelevant, that now was the time to go with Hanks to the Apple Store and find out what the real story was.

He told me that it really made him angry. Month after month, year after year, Microsoft was constantly getting caught violating the trust of its customers. He was fed up. He was disgusted. He was ready…to…consider…. a…. Mac.

“Whoa” I said, “you what??” He said it again. He wanted to go to the Apple Store and look at the iMac and everything else in the store. “It's time to really consider a change” he said, “If the Mac can do what I need it to do then I want you to help me buy what I need.”
“Not a problem.” I said. “I won't push you though, I won't try and talk you into this, if you do it you do it on your own. I don't want you coming back to me and blaming me later if you find out you made a mistake.” He said that's exactly what he wanted to hear.


They go into the store, they check out all the machines, they see the bottom end and the top end, they discuss the pros and cons, they go through the checklist of software and features. The friend goes home with a new G4 tower-- not the top-end one, but a respectable one by any measure.

That was on Wednesday. Today, the friend is if anything even more sure of the rightness of his purchase than he was two days ago, and he's now spreading the word to his own co-workers.

What I found most interesting was this:

My friend confessed to me that a lot of PC users are worried about “Big Brother” and really want to move away from Windows. “All they need is the right excuse,” he said. “I intend to do whatever I can to convince my PC buddies to come to the Apple Store and see that there is an alternative. We don't have to put up with this crap anymore”.

I myself am finding that it's less and less a matter of people having to be convinced that Macs are not crashy or slow or irrelevant or little boxes with 9-inch black-and-white screens. More and more, it's simply a matter of pointing out that Macs exist-- because often that simply slips people's minds, and once they're reminded of it, they're more than willing to be wooed by the charms of the platform.

And if the revolution is truly beginning, we have to give Microsoft just as much credit for it as we give Apple. Apple provides the compelling alternative... but Microsoft just won't stop providing reasons to ditch Windows.

Nor will they, unless they see these kinds of conversions start happening on a scale that affects their bottom line. If they see it as a threat, they'll have to shape up their business practices and their bundling techniques.

So c'mon, everybody-- let's all go Mac! For Microsoft's sake!

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© Brian Tiemann