Re: Apple's Success
Where did I say that Samsung's stuff was anything other than mediocre? I said I preferred their design elements. Not that they were fundamentally "better."
You leap staunchly to defence without realising that I am not attempting to vilify Apple in any way. I am not impugning their honour. I do not hold a grudge against Apple, nor am recommending against them. I am simply objectively determining their place in the market and giving them props where props are due, without attaching unwarranted significance to other aspects of their business.
Do not presume for a second that "preferring A to B" or "what I use" is an indication of what I believe is "best." Far – far – more details go into a purchase decision than what someone thinks is "best." This is true not simply for me, but for anyone. Price, availability, a balance of the values of various features…the mix and the match result in different choices for everyone; and not everyone even has the same options.
So please don’t waste time attacking me; especially if you cannot check your emotions at the door. Instead, I think that you would benefit from reading this paper.
If that seems like too much work, Ars Technica has a great writeup on it here.
I feel compelled to reiterate how this series of comments does nothing but reinforce the point I was trying to make in the article: buying into hype, marketing, "the controlled message," "what’s popular" or "what everyone else is doing" is not a good plan for people who can’t afford to take risks. Instead I advocate research.
Gather evidence, learn some science; especially the science related to our own psychology and group dynamics. Learn to separate the pre-canned, carefully manicured world we are fed by people who do know that very science – and your own tribal instincts – from reality.
Sometimes "what everyone does" is done for good reason; it is the most efficient possible way. Other times, it is because billions of dollars and lots of time from very smart people has gone into creating an industry that merely believes it is the best way.
Consider if you will the Cisco-trained nerd. Indoctrinated for 10+ years in all things Cisco. He is approached by a small business of 50 seats. This business has crunched the numbers as hard as they can and they know that they can only afford to spend $50,000 to upgrade their entire IT infrastructure. It must last 6 years. They have zero wiggle room on this; this is all the money they can possibly get together.
The Cisco nerd – and I have seen this happen many times in my life, involving many different Cisco nerds – will adamantly demand that the company spend $25000 on switches and routers. "If you can’t afford to do things properly, you shouldn’t be in business" is the claim. Chats come out. TCO and long term this and that are mentioned. Huge effort goes in to convincing this business the absolutely must have Cisco because Cisco is the best, and nothing but the best is acceptable. Anything except the exacting deployments outlined in best practice whitepapers is akin to sacrilege.
The CEO of the company turns to me and says "is what he says true? Should I close up my company tomorrow?" I browse to the local computer shop on my phone, pull up some off-the shelf servers, 48-port DLink switches, some SME NAS gear with "meh" replication, VMware licences, MS licenses and backup software licences. I factor in the cost of bandwidth over the 6 year lifespan of the project and some offsite storage in a datacenter I run. I manage to do it for $40,000, including spare parts.
The Cisco nerd explodes with rage. Everything I just described goes against a lifetime of his teaching. He sprays emotion everywhere, verbally assaulting me; even coming within a hair’s breath on more than one occasion of physically assaulting me. For doing math; but not doing it according to the whitepapers in which he has invested his sense of self worth. By rejecting the ideas – and the companies – that he had incorporated into his "tribe" I was not only "insulting" those ideas and products, I was insulting him.
This is my point. It is the point of this article, and ultimately the point of the comment thread we’re engaged in. You have demonstrated in inability to separate emotion and self image from a brand. Apple isn’t what it appears to be at first glance, and it certainly isn’t what its most ardent followers make it out to be. Neither are Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, Oracle or pretty much anyone else you can name.
If you are ever satisfied you know 100% "how things are," then you have stopped seeking evidence and started believing. You have resorted to faith. I get the distinct impression from our little tête-à-tête here that you are willing and capable of resorting to faith. I’m not. So we are never going to resolve this; no more so than any other religious (or political) binary dichotomy will ever be resolved.
I suggest we call it a truce and move on. You have decided that you can label me. In doing so you have associated heaps of extraneous baggage attached to that label with me; most of it without cause. There is thus no room for debate. This thread will simply end up with more of me defending myself against things I never said. Things which instead are associated with the label you have chosen to apply to me.
I’d ask that instead of clicking "reply" and venting your emotions into your poor keyboard (what did it ever do to you?) that you instead click the links I provided you.
Thanks for your time, and have a good day.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
