Flippin' fanboys...

[Mike Fishcake]

There's an Apple mailing list at the place I work, and occasionally we get over-excited people making pithy comments about Microsoft products. An example I found in my inbox today:

Dear fellow smug-gits,

I notice that we are the only UK HE sucker, i mean institution to be offering pre-adoption testing of Windows Vista. Does anyone fancy heading to the meeting and having a laugh at the knock off OSX software on display??

http://LINK-REMOVED

"We would ask you to keep in mind that this trial involves a pre-release version of the operating system. Not everything works perfectly, and you should keep backups and save your work regularly. Please do not enter sensitive information, such as credit- card details, into these machines. These warnings are repeated when you log in."

**** Nothing new here then*****

Just makes me want to bang my head against a brick wall. I've drafted up this reply, what do you all think?

Dear Mr (name removed),

May I be so bold as to remind you that this is the Apple list, not the anti-Microsoft list?

As subscribers to the Apple list, I should imagine that most of us are already aware of the advantages that MacOS has over the Windows XP operating system, but we don't need to be reminded of this repeatedly, or indeed called 'suckers' for even considering using a "competitor's" product. If this was a joke, then I'm struggling to find the punchline.

If you want to take part in repeated MicroSoft bashing, I'm reasonably confident that I'm not alone in requesting that you find some other place to do so, as I subscribed to this list to discuss the products that Apple are involved in, not to take part in tiresome MS-bashing "discussions" that have taken place on Mac and Linux fan messageboards around the world time and time and time again.

I for one am looking forward to checking out the full version of the Windows Vista operating system. This doesn't mean I'll stop using MacOS, but I do like to keep an open mind as any new technologies interest me, and I don't feel any particular allegiance to any company. Regardless of how reliable or unreliable you consider the Windows operating systems to be, please remember that both Microsoft and Apple are multinational money-making companies, not local football teams.

This is the last I will post here on the subject, as I don't wish to clutter up the mailing list with any more comments on this matter. If anybody has any comments they wish to convey about what I've said, please email me directly.

Best regards,

Mike Thorpe (a MacOS and Windows user)

Does this sound fair?

[Mike Fishcake]

Sod it, posted it anyway

[dangel]

Yes it does Mike - and I wholeheartedly agree. Every product should be valued on it's relative merits, not just by the badge on the box. I'm am (frankly) unable to understand why people follow brands with religious fervour when the corp. behind the scenes cares no more for them than their competitor.
Apple is a great example of this - as far as I can see they're a company that has appalling customer service, quite often ropey products (iPod) and charges you through the nose for it (Macs) to boot. Yet people see it as some 'enlightening' alternative religion that they need to shove down the throats of the great unwashed at every oportunity. Every product from MS is *bad* no matter what in their eyes and all employees of MS are devil worshippers who's sole job in life is to figure out how to kill your children in interesting ways..

Weird world isn't it?

MS bashing is so darn boring - particularly in the World where their products are getting remarkably (and inconviently) GOOD. IE7 is actually pretty good, Vista is actually _very_ good and Office 2007 is _excellent_. OTOH Visual Studio 2005 is a slow piece of buggy crap and Windows Live Messenger is a smelly pile of ad-riddled bloatware.

[chuckskull]

Yeah this Os elitism gets on my nerves. Linux is great for some things, OSX is great for some and the same goes for windows.

No-one of those OS's can claim to be the 'best' as it just isn't that simple.

nice reply

[Gordy]

Annoys me two, I use windows and os x side by side and they both have their merits. Being blinkered to only use one is stupid!

[joshwa]

Some Mac people seem to think that Windows (even today) is exactly like Windows 95/98 - and crashes a lot. Yet my home PC when it was running Windows 2000 or now running Windows XP, simply never crashes. A properly setup Windows machine can be just as stable as Mac OS X.

All the IT people I speak to who generally use Windows as the main operating system never go round "bashing" Macs, they're simply not interested, and bashing another OS is just a complete waste of time to them.

Yet when we meet hardcore Apple users they seem to *think* that that's what we do and are automatically on the defensive! (bringing up PC vs Mac discussions, and snide comments)

Very annoying, and SO 1990 Amiga vs Atari ST 14 year old kids type behaviour.

[fuddam]

nice one.

[dangel]

Very annoying, and SO 1990 Amiga vs Atari ST 14 year old kids type behaviour.

Yeah but the Amiga was the better computer..

[Rack]

lol! My Amiga pwn's your Atari! Check my 512KB memory and 2nd floppy drive!

Great reply mike.

Brand attachment is all marketing bollocks.

I can only hope fan-boy-ism will eventually fade so that we can all be better consumers - the only way we have to tell these big companies they are doing something wrong - and rewarding ones whose products are actually good.

[unrealrocks]

Fan-boyism will never fade, I'm probably accused of it quite often although that said I know quite a few IT 'profesionals' (lol) and nearly all of them have a bash at Apples expense, lol - its not just one sided

With every product/anything else theres always two sides to the argument. From www.apple.com and www.macrumours.com to www.greenmyapple.com or http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...60189868317794

I love my mac and try to keep away from Windows as much as possible - but hey!