Date of publication: March 2, 1998
Microsoft Is the Borg: Prepare to Be Assimilated
by Michael Finley
Copyright © 1998 by Michael Finley
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Originally appeared in the Saint Paul Pioneer Press
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COMMENTS:
Date sent: Sun, 06 Dec 1998 04:11:11 -0600
Subject:
From: "christopher david clark"
To: mfinley@mfinley.com
First off hello. Just finished reading a few of your past articles(via
hotlink from evangilist), and just had to write. I know it has probably
already been hashed about and you don't need another reply over this but
what the heck whats one more!
I fully understand your decision at the time to purchase a cheaper
knockoff computer, but you are using a Compaq now, a comparable to within
$10-20 cpu to an Apple. You work in publishing(a field and pardon the
caps DOMINATED by the mac), and that has probably led to a couple of
problems here and there. Why not look at moving over? Well other then
not having any funny computer horror stories to sell(and that is a VERY
compelling reason I grant you). You don't have to buy one just borrow one
or do the "credit card" rental(buy one try it and return it within the
stores time frame).
I won't defend Apples price gouging in '84 it was just poor business
sense(but what do you expect from a couple of YOUNG guys who started in a
garage?), however please remember you get what you pay for! No second
string chips, no mcguyvered motherboards and a computer that will not
think your sound card is an ethernet board and vice versa(It happened to a
friend of mine)! So penny wise. pound foolish as they used to say. Price
is no longer the major driving force except in the WAY lowend market.
People will buy cheap electronics, that is true. They look at it like
buying a stereo; to most people the sound difference between a $400
panasonic and a $4000 Bang and Olafson is not that great. It is but not
$3600 worth(I used to work at a hi-fi store in college)in most cases!
They should however look at it from the point of view of a new car or a
new house: If you were buying a car and model A sold for $10,000 and the
nearly identical model B sold for $2500 what question would you ask
yourself? And would you trust the B with your wife and kids? Same goes
for a house, you probably would ask yourself:
"Whats wrong with it"?
The software question is another thing entirely. It may have already been
brought up but there are only about 125 titles more for the PC TOTAL! Not
that you will find them easily outside of a catalog( that is part of DOJ
case against Mr bil, the license agreements with retailers and microsofts
purchase of large ammounts of floor/shelf space in software retailers for
themselve and for resale to "friendly" partners). Most of the newer drugs
you may get prescribed were modeled on a mac, life support for the space
shuttle is handled by and Apple built board(modified iie to be precise),
html was developed on NEXT and refined on a mac so the web as you know it
today is an Apple by product. Hell according to CERN 70% of the web pages
out there were designed on a mac(figures are about 7 mths old so that may
have slipped).
But all of that aside there are a couple of more important issues:
Microsofts admission of theft of MacOs code for all windows iterations
after 1.2(see DOJ testimony and SEC docs filed earlier this year $4.2
billion in out of court settlements, trying to make nice so Apple would
licence more code and do contract design work for Win98), and hardware.
IBM is abandoning Intel, all products for 99 will be using the PPC chip,
and once the Apple G4 series has been out a while they will start using
their version of the new copper chips(Apple, IBM and Motorola are copatent
holders on the technology), if you don't know what that is in a nutshell
it's a smaller more efficient lower power usage cpu chip, the Apple test
chip gained 300mhz and reduced power consumption and heat production by
1/3! Intel has nothing that can compete with it and will have a very
tough time developing a similar process since the patents cover the 3 most
cost effective processes.
The test chip was a 603e 180 (in intel speak a second gen pentium) that
jumped to 480 and cosumed a little under 4 watts of power! Take a look at
your light bill, how much money would that save you? Factor in the cost of
your time in fixing problems such as IE eating your HD and how much money
did you save by purchasing a WINTEL machine? Not to mention that MacOs
cost under a $100 with an upgrade for previous users of around $20.
In closing I will leave you with 2 paraphrased quotes:
"the reason we have not brought a product as powerful a win 95 earlier was
the hardware was weak and not up to the task" BILL GATES on PBS's
series on the computer revolution '95
"give us MacOs as exclusive licensee or we will anihilate your company"
Also BILL GATES during corporate meeting with STEVE JOBS part of the
public record as evidence in the anti-trust case currently on going(by the
way it was on video tape)
Thank you for your time have a nice holiday
![[IMAGE]](http://mfinley.com/gif/finley.gif)
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A month ago I reported on a wrenching experience I had installing Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 on my Compaq ("Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 is great! Except that it wipes out your operating system").
Microsoft has since been begging me to explain that the install problem has been solved. They sent me a CD and they're right, it's fixed -- now.
But there was another, profounder reaction to that column, from a surprising quarter. I must have gotten 200 e-mail messages from Macintosh users.
What happened was, a Twin Cities Mac user, Peter Benson, forwarded the article to something called the Macintosh Evangelist (email: evangelist@macway.com, or go to http://www.solutions.apple.com/ListAdmin).
The Evangelist is a listserver created by Apple visionary Guy Kawasaki to serve as a distant early warning system for its 40,000 militant Mac subscribers. The instant a topic affecting the continued health and viability of the Macintosh brand pops up on the radar, Evangelist spreads the word and organizes a response.
In this case, 40,000 committed Mac warriors descended on my e-mail box like locusts. Their point of view was that my column, showing the moral bankruptcy of the Windows/Intel architecture, was proof that the Mac was the only sensible computer to own, and that I was a Wintel stooge too myopic or too compromised to contemplate making that sensible switch.
Some of the locusts were quite nice. "You know," one writer said, "these install problems simply don't happen on the Mac system. This pain you are experiencing could easily be avoided."
That I could handle. What I handled less well were the scores of letters taunting me for buying the wrong kind of computer. These were the Mac warriors, willing to do just about anything, even be a teeny bit obnoxious, to make their point. They are the techno equivalent of Operation Rescue or EarthFirst. I was no match for them.
Here's a sampling:
"I find it comforting that there are people out there like you -- a PC user who knows that his platform is subpar, and that his decision to buy and stick with it no matter what, is the height of imbecilitude. You make me feel really good about myself."
"If you lived in 1776, you would have been saying, 'Boy, those Brits are screwing us and ripping us blind. But if we just follow their laws and kneel before their king, we'll be all right.' You're a techno Tory."
"I am sending my condolences to you in advance in regards to all the problems you will have in the near future. May God have pity on your soul."
"Gee, if you had a Macintosh, instead of being miserable and unproductive, you'd get your work done sooner and have more time with your kids. They're probably having problems you don't even know about."
"My life has been sweet since Microsoft came into it. You see, I am a computer productivity consultant. I owe much of my success to people like you. I love purveyors of computer doom because my phone always picks up when stories like yours make the rounds."
None of this was really personal. The Evangelistas saw an opportunity to make hay and remind the world that there is a cure for the Wintel blues. And they used my column as the hayrick.
The larger question, however, the one that still has me on the defensive, is: Why hasn't the PC world switched to Macintosh, after all the headaches PCs have caused?
In my case, it was a matter of money. When the Mac came out in 1984 it cost $3,000, compared to a more powerful, though much less interesting, IBM knockoff could be got for$1,700. Over the next ten years, the IBM/Intel/Microsoft standard fell continuously in price, while Apple held steady. Business buyers made the PC a standard because they trusted the IBM name. And it was affordable. The "rest of us" that the Mac was for, evidently, was people with an extra thousand bucks plus to burn.
Today, Macs are much more affordable. But the Mac is still a closed architecture that comparatively few companies are creating products for. Macintosh remains stalled, holding onto its true believers, picking up a few defectors that can afford the switch, and attracting latecomers to computing with their excellent, albeit isolated, standard.
The Evangelist is determined to supply the one thing that has been lacking for their brand -- passion. They have a great case to make: switch now or face assimilation into the Borg, the misfiring minions of Microsoft.
I wish them all the luck in the world, and they will need it, because the Borg is on a roll.
America's Best-Loved Technology Writer(TM), Michael Finley has a free gift for visitors to http://mfinley.com.
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