I touched a nerve two weeks back, when I asked readers whether Chief Technologist and Ahead of the Curve columnist Tom Yager
has been paying too much attention to Apple. After reading dozens of e-mails, plus comments posted to InfoWorld Daily’s Talkback section, I’m more attuned than ever to the debate over Apple’s relevance to the enterprise.
Roughly eight out of every 10 letter writers sprang to Yager’s defense. Byron Minick summarized a common sentiment when he
noted, “As an IT person myself, I need to stay informed about what is happening in the marketplace — and that includes Apple.”
Apple’s ability to presage future developments was another recurring theme. “It comes down to whether … you want your readers
to know about what innovations are going on before they need to adjust to how business is being done,” says Corky Seeber.
And what about the 20 percent who believe we’re Steve Jobs flag-wavers? Some, like Ray White, feel Yager’s column “smacks
of cult beliefs.” Others, like Alan Hazelrig, ask, “If Apple was doing so many things right, then why are there billions of
Wintels vs. the paltry millions of Macs?”
Perhaps most intriguing is the Talkback commentary from Allan Lees, a CIO who oversees an environment of Macs and PCs. Based
on his analysis of help-desk tickets, he concludes, “We spend three times as long supporting Macs, per machine, as we spend
supporting Windows environments. Although Macs represent 36 percent of our total desktop machines, we actually spend more
hours in total on Mac issues than on Windows issues.”
Duly noted, Mr. Lees. But even so, I will continue to give Yager plenty of latitude to write about the technologies that most
move him. In fact, I’ll be taking counsel from Ed Naylor, who succinctly advises, “Give Tom Yager his head, and be assured
he will be read.”
E-mail
Printer Friendly
Reprints
(InfoWorld) - In the litigious world we live in, deploying a unified communications platform in your enterprise could...
