My Old Flame: The Macintosh By Stewart Alsop (online at http://www.fortune.com)
I'm rethinking the Mac as a factor in computing. One simple reason: The Macintosh seems to work.
Like most people, I wrote the Macintosh off a long time ago. After an 11-year relationship, I dumped the Mac in 1996 and persuaded my partners to switch to a Windows-only network. I thought Apple Computer was pretty much toast. But then Steve Jobs refocused the employees and started getting real financial results, and the company delivered a series of truly cool devices. All of which led me, a few weeks ago, to buy my first Apple product in years--the gorgeous Titanium G4 Macintosh. Now I'm rethinking the Macintosh as a factor in computing. There's one simple reason: Unlike Windows, the Macintosh seems to work.
I bought my Titanium G4 just before Apple shipped its new operating system, so I'm not using that yet. But check out what I've been able to do in relatively short order: I have connected my digital camera to the computer via the USB port (something I still haven't managed on Windows 2000); the Mac's Airport card seems to work just fine with our wireless network, so I can carry the Titanium around the house; a piece of software called DAVE connects the Macintosh to the Windows-based network in our house (sometimes known as the Digital Manor), so I can get documents from my desktop and notebook computers.
I'm well aware that there's still a downside to using a Mac. I know there is a lot of software that I can't get on the Macintosh. None of my five portfolio companies that make client software make Macintosh versions. But for pretty much every important productivity application--word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, e-mail, and so on--there's some Macintosh equivalent that will suffice. (Most of the alternatives are actually just versions of the Microsoft software I use on Windows.)
The bottom line: Sure, there's pain in adopting the Mac. But if I accept that, I get to use a computer that works, and that pretty much does what I expect and want a computer to do.
Windows, on the other hand, still doesn't seem to work. Now, of course, you can turn on a Windows PC and have it operate. But you can't do so without a guaranteed level of frustration, and your frustration will definitely increase the more you use the computer. If you use your PC simply to write or to e-mail or to analyze spreadsheets, you'll suffer just a little. But push the limits; use the computer for a bunch of different tasks. If your Windows experience is like mine, programs will fail or crash; the machine will start acting funny; tasks won't get completed; you'll wait around a lot hoping the machine will work after this reboot.
Microsoft executives are readying Windows XP, a new version of the company's operating system, and they promise that this new version will be better. I've heard similar promises for years; now I just smile, nod my head, and wonder at the power of the Kool-Aid they serve in Redmond. I don't believe these execs. They were very enthusiastic about Windows 3.0, Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows 2000. Their enthusiasm is meaningless, because (unless you opt for the Mac) you won't have a choice. You will use this software--if not today, tomorrow. I remember writing a column about how I wasn't going to upgrade to Windows 98 ("A Software Junkie Rejects Windows 98," in the fortune.com archive). I did resist--for a year. Then I bought a new computer, and it came with Windows 98 installed. Then I bought another PC, with Windows 2000. Every new version has problems, and every new version is more frustrating. Worse yet, I now operate in an increasingly complex web of hardware, a world in which I want my Kyocera Smartphone, my BlackBerry, and my Visto Website to all be synchronized with my PCs at home and the corporate network. The key pieces of software tying all this together follow specifications set by Microsoft. And they don't work. Not nearly well enough. And so my frustration level rises and rises.
It's grown, in fact, to the point where I want to say that I'm sick and tired and I'm not going to take this anymore. But then I remember that I recommended to my partners that we go Windows-only in 1996. Why? Because by giving up Macs, I told them, we wouldn't spend time integrating all our different computers and could instead use computers to our advantage. Boy, was I wrong: It is as hard to maintain and integrate Windows computers as it is to integrate multiple kinds of computer systems.
So what should I do? Should I go back to using a Macintosh, which would mean asking the partners to adjust once again, and asking the techies to configure our system again? Or should I stumble along with Windows? What a choice!
