Thank you.
For showing us the man.
Guy Kewney was the UK's first technology journalist and remained the doyen of the trade until the end. Born in South Africa in 1946, in the 1960s Guy quit the apartheid regime for the UK. After rattling around in a number of jobs, including programming and writing advertising copy, in the 1970s he eventually found his …
One of the things I remember fondly about Guy is how wrong he could be.
A recent article (well 2008) at http://www.pcw.co.uk/personal-computer-world/comment/2224643/kewney-large-head-cloud is a good example. He clearly couldn't know about Dropbox and other cloud-based products that would bring it withing everyone's reach.
Nevertheless, I know for a fact that his world-view often promped developers into proving him wrong. So in that sense, maybe his being right actually made him wrong, with hindsight.
Guy was a great journalist and a good friend.
Cliff
I have to confess I wasn't familiar with Kewney or his work before his death, but he seems to have been quite an interesting and engaging person. Some of the obituaries/comments have been very touching. The last few entries in Kewney's blog are particularly poignant.
Was saddened to read of Guy's passing, I read every single article in PCW from 1978 to 2009 - so like many, knew a little of the real Guy from his writing.
Unlike so many other obits, this one hits the bullseye exactly matches the man I 'knew' and cherished, thank you Manek, RIP Guy we already miss you!
Guy Kewney was a great tech journalist. He was a great tech journalist because he had something to say and that something had context and understanding and wit and gravitas. I used to read the magazines he contributed to for his writing and that of other great columnists like John Dvorak because they were excited by what was going on, could see its significance and were able to communicate their enthusiasm and knowledge.
Those who've followed in his wake are rarely able to hold my attention. Few have his intellect or ability to marshall an arguement and maintain its thread from beginning to end.
The saddest aspect of his passing is that there are now so few people able to grasp the sweep of tech history from the sixties to the present in the way that Guy was.
Guy you got me excited about tech. You made me care about it. You left me wiser about it. You did the same, I'm sure, for countless thousands of others. No journalist can aspire to more.