| Home > Of things Mac > The satisfaction of hearing a Windows switcher make the change |
| The satisfaction of hearing a Windows switcher make the change | | Date Created: 17 Aug, 2006, 07:04 AM |
 Much of my working day is spent helping people change.
Sometimes, the change is one to persistent mood, other times it relates to habitual behaviours that no longer can be tolerated and may lead to harm (as judged by the individual or another), and other times, it's about someone already changing themselves but wanting guidance as to accelerating or broadening that change.
Into the latter category will go those who consult me or attend my workshops on increasing their IT skills in their work, such as colleagues wishing to know more about how IT can assist their practices, or others wishing to know more about the scientific basis of better presentations, something I have written about extensively in this blog.
So it will come as no surprise to learn that I am a keen follower of others' stories of how they managed change in their lives.
If you're an old Machead, meaning, to use an arbitrary measure, you've used OS 8 in your day (my first OS was System 6 on the Mac Plus), you've been through Apple's ups and downs as it tries to claw back mindshare, if not marketshare.
Combining what I do in a daily basis with being a Mac user, means I take great pleasure when people come to their own epiphany when it comes to switching from one platform to another, eg, Windows to Mac. I must say hearing of others going from Linux to Mac offers me far less satisfaction, as it's often as much about the hardware as it is the software, and indeed in recent months, there have been some well-publicised shifts in the other direction.
One very rarely hears of a Mac to Windows migration, at least not voluntarily, and not of late. Before the return of Steve Jobs and the eventual maturation of OS X, it was quite common in the beleagured days of people to switch to Windows, gettin' while the gettin' was good, so to speak. A decision had to be made at some point in the upgrade cycle whether it was prudent to keeping investing in the "dying" Mac platform.
Those days are thankfully well passed us now, and the Mac is shaping up as a real challenger not just for consumer mind share, but now much more so for SOHO users of IT and even within the enterprise setting.
So, with this in mind, and letting you know of the intrinsic pleasure I get when someone makes a change of their own via self-discovery which I'm happy to validate, it gave me great satisfaction when I woke early this morning to read The Age newspaper's online edition.
I was initially attracted to an op-ed piece about an Australian citizen being held pending trial (of some or any sort) at Guantanamo Bay, for nearly five years. Reading it likely raised my blood pressure (I'm a sucker for stories of injustices, or in this case, the desire to see justice served appropriately), and placed me in an emotional state, such that I noticed a box to the right of the main story.
The box is one frequently posted by the Age webmasters, showing the most read stories of the day, and the New York Times has something similar, including the most emailed story, another measure of popularity perhaps. |
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But the story I noted at Number one position was one I linked to in my previous entry, below, about the Patience of Jobs.
It refers to a column, Now I'm a believer, by IT writer and commentator, Graeme Philipson, following his recent switch from Windows to a Mac Book Pro. In fact, his most recent column last Tuesday about the switch - actually more a dump given the way he dumps on Microsoft - is the first he's written in his regular column after announcing his switch a few months back. He writes of the changes he has made to working with the Mac platform, and draws a strong conclusion about it:
"In every department, it beats the PC hands down. The machine itself is quite handsome. The file structure and the way all the utilities work are different, but very easy to get used to and far more intuitive than with Windows."
Two things: how is it that a story of the switch to a platform of under 5% makes it to the most popular list, and number one at that (amidst a list of hard and soft news stories);
and two, it took very little convincing once communicating with the author, Graeme Philipson who admits to almost living in Powerpoint, to have him consider checking out Keynote which would have come bundled as a demo with his Mac Book.
This kind of anecdotal evidence of change, published in a regular IT column within an IT supplement which usually gives very little space to the Mac, is important. Not just does it gladden my heart to read of others' self-directed change, but it gives weight to the idea that the Mac's mindshare will eventually lead to a greater market share.
That's not necessarily the be all and end all of it, given that Microsoft's market share has hardly translated into the best OS on the market - quite the reverse, in fact. But increased market share will likely wake some software developers from their stupor, and release software for the Mac at the same time they do for Windows. And if they decide to port across their Windows version, then it will also be a very Mac-oriented port, as in the case of enterprise mindmapping software of note, MindManager 6 for Mac from Mindjet.
That might mean a competitive struggle for loyal Mac developers who have stayed with the platform through thick and thin. But with Apple eating its young by including additions to its next OS usually supplied by niche third party developers who detect gaps in the existing OS - Spaces anyone? - that struggle will hopefully lead to even greater innovation on the part of the developer community.
What about you? If you're an old Machead, does it also gladden your heart and put a spring in your step when you hear of long-time Windows users describing their seachange?
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