T he Mac community has lashed out at one of its own for what was perceived as a lackadaisical approach to supporting Macs at his own company. In a follow-up to another column at InfoWorld, an IT-oriented print and online magazine, CTO Chad Dickerson said he came under a Mac attack for telling a sales person he was on his own if he wanted to use a Mac at work. Mr. Dickerson said he was called an idiot and a dolt by many Mac users who wrote into him, and in the new column, he further explains his position.
"Clearly, the response would have been kinder if I had just been unmasked as a serial killer," wrote Mr. Dickerson. "I received generous helpings of iidioti and idolti sprinkled with a icallous ineptitudei here and there -- all because I wrote about my warning to a new salesperson that he wasnit going to get support for being the Lone Ranger of Macs in his PC-only department."
Mr. Dickerson explained that part of the anger may have been engendered by the title his editor gave to his column, "Want a Mac? Youire on your own," which TMO covered in March, 2005. In reality, he reiterated, he is a Mac user himself, though not a zealot, and made the case that the right computer for the right job should be used in a corporate environment.
"As Iive noted before, I love Macs, but I think Mac proponents need to rein in the blind passion to avoid offering problematic solutions in the name of Mac purity," he wrote. "When a PC-only app is absolutely critical, give that person a PC."
The Mac community gained a reputation for lashing out at ignorant critics under the leadership of Guy Kawasaki, the Mac Evangelist for Apple during the 1990s. Mr. Kawasaki organized and maintained the Mac EvangeList, a mailing list of Mac fans that were often marshalled to (re)educate critics of the Mac that spoke inaccurately or from ignorance.
Since that time, the Mac Web itself has become a sort of EvangeList writ large, with many Mac users lashing out at even other Mac users who donit toe the correct Mac line. The experience Mr. Dickerson described is usually directed towards the like of Rob Enderle or Paul Thurrott, two noted critics of Apple.
You can read Mr. Dickersonis new column at InfoWorld.