One of my goals as an Apple fan is to evangelize the greatness of
Apple products to everyone who falls into earshot. I have learned not
to be pushy or overbearing, but to simply answer questions when asked
and to make my Apple products as visible as possible in my daily
activities. I spend most of my time showing my products to friends and
clients at an enterprise level, a tough audience, as proprietary
systems and bias in capital expenditure groups keeps users from having
the ability to change.
My work in this corporate group is often frustrating and has yet to
win a large scale migration. Success typically comes from one or two of
my coworkers who migrate home machines.
I was recently planning a trip with friend who is a die hard Wintel
fan. Steve last played with a Mac in 1995 and still thinks you cannot
do anything on a Mac. As we planned the trip, he was watching me send a
few emails on my
PowerBook. He commented that he liked the system and wished someone
would build a similar machine for Windows users. I had an idea on how
to best evangelize Macintosh.
me: "Lets take nothing but Macs with us. I want you to spend some
time using one of my machines, and then I want you to rate the
experience."
him: "bwah ha hahahhah . . . hmmm okay, but I get to use your
PowerBook!"
Ouch, that hurt. He really thinks the world of the PowerBook's
design, and I had an inkling that this would happen. I agreed, and the
two of us went on to plan our trip. The first step was to make sure he
could perform all of his tasks with the PowerBook.
Web stuff (browsing, FTP), email (with Lotus Notes - ugh, a
problem), Office (Microsoft that is), PIM (he is a Palm user), DVD,
MP3s, games....
In my mind, the only two concerns I had were Lotus Notes and gaming.
I knew this would mean VirtualPC. Unfortunately, I have only VPC4,
which means we are stuck in 0S 9. No problem and probably better
for this exercise. This will help battery life and Palm sync
anyway.
Gaming was a problem until I asked him what he was currently
playing. He has been working through Baldur's Gate II over the last few
weeks. This is a game available for Mac, and one that will not give my
older PowerBook any problems.
I made sure all was set up and then installed Lotus Notes. This
solution was not too bad and seemed to run with decent speed. I was
going to depend on him to be able to set the application up correctly
for his needs. I installed Office 2001 (I was waiting for X and had not
done yet installed 2001) and got some of his CDs to rip for him prior
to the trip.
The day came, and we were ready to go. I stole my wife's iBook for the trip, so I was not
too worried about him running my PowerBook. I spent about 30 minutes at
the airport, teaching him where everything was and how things work on
the machine. As we boarded the plane, I handed him my PowerBook and let
him go.
It was quite interesting to watch him slowly work the machine. He
started slowly and worked on a Word document while listening to some
MP3 files. After about 30 minutes, Steve decided to watch a movie. All
went well, and he watched the new Star
Trek: The Motion Picture, Director's Edition for around an hour. At
this point, he had started to look at the PowerBook more fondly.
From the seat behind us, we started getting questions from another
traveler. This traveler was using one of the ultra-portable Sony
machines, which of course had long since run out of juice. The traveler
asked us some questions about the PowerBook, and my buddy was starting
to express the benefits of the Mac.
As it happens, the traveler was interested in PowerBooks as he was a
Unix administrator (and was running Linux on his Sony). He was worried
about the size of the PowerBook and thought it a bit too big (compared
to his Vaio, it was). I woke my iBook (running X) and handed it to the
guy. Once he found the terminal, he was in heaven. For the remainder of
the flight, the traveler was gushing over the Mac system. He had been
leaning to Macs, and all he needed was a few minutes to actually see
one work the way he needed it to work. Steve continued to play around
and even went so far as to boot into OS X to give it a try.
As we arrived at our destination, I had helped convince the traveler
to buy an iBook. He loved the size and was very impressed with the
battery life and the Unix based OS. He was looking for a local CompUSA
to grab one as soon as possible. Steve enjoyed the machine but was
still not totally sold.
Over the next few days, Steve became more and more interested in the
system. As he did things like sync his Palm, check his email via Lotus
and VPC, and play Baldur's Gate II, he started to realize the beauty of
the machine. Over the three days he used the computer, he had not one
crash and not one blue screen of death. He received email from his
office, worked on files in MS Office, and finished a presentation. He
worked in OS 9, OS X, and Windows 2000 (on VPC), with each OS
running well and stably. All without the machine holding him back.
As we wrapped up our trip, he confessed that he was going to need to
look at a PowerBook of his own. In his mind, the experiment removed any
doubts about compatibility. Also, he liked the fact that the machine
had not required any reboots or restarts and that it had worked well
with the peripherals he needed. He realized that the quality of the
Apple machines was far and away the best and that the performance was
wonderful. As he said he was able to get things done.
Apple computers are products which need to be used and played with
to be appreciated. If you have a chance, grab a Wintel friend and let
him or her use your Mac for a few days. The attention to detail will
win them over. 
