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http://www.macnn.com/articles/01/06/13/fortune's.alsop/

Fortune's Alsop considers Mac conversion

updated 06:55 pm EDT, Wed June 13, 2001

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Ryan G. notes that Fortune's Stewart Alsop has purchased his first Mac in years—a PowerBook G4 Titanium—and is considering switching back to the Mac, after convincing his partners to go Windows in 1996. His consideration stems from the fact that he has been able to use the machine effectively very quickly after purchasing it, including connecting a digital camera without problems, using a wireless network via AirPort, and connecting to Windows-based networks using DAVE.

by MacNN Staff

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06/13, 07:08pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Wohoo

Glad to have that handsome-looking boy back in the Apple-camp!!!!

Oh yeah:
All your fortune magazine writers are belong to us...

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06/13, 07:15pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Stewart, Stewart....

We could have spared you the heartache, bro.... Switch you guys back to the Mac - you won't look back.

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06/13, 07:30pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Hmm

I've gotta chime in with my "I told you so." I remember shaking my head when reading about his switch. Welcome back, Stewart!

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06/13, 07:48pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Alsop a Bandwagon Loser

Geez, Stewart, give us a break. This guy went with the money, folks, and now he's nostalgic, and sense a chance to appear "visionary" again. You're a loser, Stewart--stick to Windows.

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06/13, 08:29pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Bandwagon...

I would hardly call someone who uses a system with 5% market share a 'Bandwagon' loser.

I say welcome back!

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06/13, 09:10pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Like he didn't know bett

Im sure... what a putz, it took him 5 years to realize that??? It took me 5 minutes of windows 3.1 in its day to realize I would *NEVER* go there... EVER.

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06/13, 09:24pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
hmmmmm........

he left the mac because he peecee friends convinced him and hes not to bright computer wise then he experiences the peecee world and the h*** it offers now he wants to jump the fence again? will he understand this time around? will he get the true mac advantage?

i say welcome backfor one reason. hes giving press on how windows gives head to its users and hes showing businesses that mac os isnt some piece of s*** os just for artists witch ive had peecee people tell me many times. (i wish them dead)

the one thing i liked about his article is his very concise view of how windows operates. use windows or use nothing. linux wont cut it for computers for dummies aka newbies so then u have to leap of faith with the mac. and the point of, the more you use windows the more pain it causes is very clear very true thinking on his part. windows is a joke.

linux is a half assed programmers OS. i dont like F**** cmmd lines. i like lots of games and lots of apps. i dont like its stupid a** interface. it reminds me of dos even though DOS came from it. i like a interface that reminds me im a human. not some gawd damn robot starring at a shell patch linux users claim is a graphic os and can do what the mac os does. get that s*** outta my face. gimme mac os9.2 in a month then in a year gimme a matured osX. gimme a beer while your at it....

welcome back fence jumper. its nice to see you pulled your head out of your a**. now do me proud.

berserkintosh@yahoo.com

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06/13, 09:44pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Nice

Nice artical. Hope he doesn't install OS X anytime soon...then his mac won't just "work" hehe :)

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06/13, 09:57pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Win 3.1

Never say never - Windows 2000 is NOT Windows 3.1. It's still not as easy as OS 9, or as elegant as OSX, but you really can't compare it to something from ages ago. It's as if some WinWeenie said - I used System3 with my 128 and Macs suck.

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06/13, 10:23pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Well Written Article...

Wow.

What a well-written article. Before you go dissing Alsop, consider that the article hits many, if not all, of the hot buttons that Corporate IT deals with every day. That's the same Corporate IT that buys Windows in bulk, mind you.

With the weight of a name like Alsop behind and article like that, at least some of those IT types might try the Mac and like what they see.

And that can only help the Mac platform.

Sure, OS X isn't fully baked yet. But remembering back to the PowerPC transition, in 6-9 months, things will be rolling along much more smoothly, and on an OS built with something Corporate IT already understands - *NIX.

I for one, think there's a growing 'buzz' among the Win-based IT community about the Mac. Just about every die-hard Win user I've showed our new iBook has been interested enough to try it out for themselves - different OS notwithstanding.

It could get interesting in the days ahead...

es

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06/13, 10:39pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Oh My...

...is it just me, or have there been several articles on MacNN today? @_@

In any event... this is good.

Very good.

We

Shall

Live Again!

Oh wait... we've been living... and we've known all this time. Some people enjoyed living in ignorance, I suppose... ^_^;; If everyone used a mac, I would honestly be a lot happier than I am now. We're getting towards a 6%... 7%... slowly...

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06/13, 10:51pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Sys 3

Anyone who puts System 3, 128, and Mac Sux in the same sentence either never really used System 3, his 128, or he's forgotten what elegant computing was all about! Although I will say I was trying to find something on my Mother's Classic (!) the other day and realized that you couldn't use the "hit a character to highlight the first file with that in its name" trick. It just started renaming the file. But beyond that, elegant city! (I still don't see why anyone would need anything bigger than a 9" B&W screen, but that's just my opinion).

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06/13, 10:56pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
I am

microsoft

all your X belong to us

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06/13, 11:01pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Funny opener...

"Like most people, I wrote the Macintosh off a long time ago."

Ey? Most people? Sounds a little far reaching to me...perhaps he's trying to make his move to Windows years back sound "reasonable."

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06/13, 11:45pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
RE: Funny opener

Its called "saving face" - knows he did a jar-jar, and even worse, dragged all his buddies along for the ride - now that hes finally found out what a sad moron he was for switching, hes going back, but hes got to make it sound reasoned to save that face.

Welcome back moron, I guess its good it was a semi-pro Apple article, but the whole fiasco that brought this about is sad commentary on how people felt in Apples last "dark period". Its only because they are coming out with profits that they are going and patting em on the back saying "well done, I always knew you were the best"

Gimme a break.

Put that TiBook up your noisy a**.

--
Leach Field Coyote
--

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06/14, 01:46am | report spam | close Reply | delete
"Whoops!" , Says Stewie

But then I remember that I recommended to my partners that we go Windows-only in 1996. Why? Because by giving up Macs, I told them, we wouldn't spend time integrating all our different computers and could instead use computers to our advantage. Boy, was I wrong: It is as hard to maintain and integrate Windows computers as it is to integrate multiple kinds of computer systems.

Can you imagine? Five years of suffering because someone who "Knows Best(tm)" recommended the Windows Only solution ... then five years later, he admits his error (to his credit, he did admit it; most PHBs would not, would keep spending more and more money, and their employees would never get anything done)!

Break out that Acme Tar and Feather(tm) kit, guys ....

--gdw

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06/14, 01:52am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Windows 2000 Blows

MSFT blows. It's not a technology company - it's a software cartel that uses a marketshare-dominant OS to bundle products to run competitors out of business and makes money from even dumber companies that pay MSFT to add an icon for their own, inferior applications on the desktop.

Forget the DOJ, forget the antitrust trial. Militarize the project and nuke Redmond.

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06/14, 02:20am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Worthless Fortune

Other than the short term financial gain that Apple may acquire from these fellows, these guys are worthless to the Mac cause. They are like chaff in the wind. They follow the trends and fads and right now Apple is "In". As soon as Apple hits a minor bump in the road they'll be off and writing articles about how Apple is once again doomed. Their switch is worthless simply because they do not have loyalty to anything but their paycheck. Enough said!!

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06/14, 02:50am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Fair-Weather Friend

If Apple EVER had a fair-weather friend, it's THIS guy. I predict that WITHIN A MONTH he'll be bitter about what a "rip-off" his TiBook is compared to the iBook, which does 90% of what his does and costs half.

The only reason Alsop switched back is because Microsoft missed a payment.

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06/14, 03:36am | report spam | close Reply | delete
I remember Santa Barbara.

I seem to remember you at Guy Kawasaki's love fest in Santa Barbara, so I guess you are OK, Stewart. Welcome back.

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06/14, 06:13am | report spam | close Reply | delete
I hate mac

Mac junk, PC good, amiga better, vic20 the best.
what wrong u piipal not like cmdlain? cmdline best to be real h**** . Actually I want my sinclair zx80 back and 48k RAM.

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06/14, 07:56am | report spam | close Reply | delete
moron

This guy is a follower, a lemming; hopefully he will lead some of his species towards the Mac, but in all honesty I would rather have the Mac remain the platform for true believers.

Be honest about being a moron still makes you a moron.

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06/14, 09:28am | report spam | close Reply | delete
The irony is TOO deliciou

Has everyone forgotten the nonsense this man wrote in the past? The article that he wrote, and that Fortune, in a complete lack of responsible editing, published about the purchase of NeXt? Mr. Alsop lost some millions of dollars when Jobs/Amelio went with Next as the basis of OS X, passing over (the now essentially dead) Be OS. See for example http://www.prefab.com/essays/alsopmissesthemark.html,
Fortune doesn't have the original Feb 3, 1997 article posted (that I can find); presumably they hope we'll all have forgotten it!

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06/14, 09:58am | report spam | close Reply | delete
The irony is TOO deliciou

Has everyone forgotten the nonsense this man wrote in the past? The article that he wrote, and that Fortune, in a complete lack of responsible editing, published about the purchase of NeXt? Mr. Alsop lost some millions of dollars when Jobs/Amelio went with Next as the basis of OS X, passing over (the now essentially dead) Be OS. See for example http://www.prefab.com/essays/alsopmissesthemark.html,
Fortune doesn't have the original Feb 3, 1997 article posted (that I can find); presumably they hope we'll all have forgotten it!

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06/14, 02:03pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
More Believers

Stewart Alsop: You will see Paradise. Another one joins our holy cause.

Microsoft: Soon you will be on your knees and powerless.

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06/14, 03:46pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
No Nukes

But if we nuke Redmond, M$ contaminated fallout could drift down to Cupertino... I'd say a few dozen well-placed Ryder trucks on the M$ campus ought to do it. If we can't find enough fertilizer to fill them, the next best thing would be piles of Win XP retail boxes. In this case "XP" really would stand for eXPlode.

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06/14, 05:35pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Running X

Hope he doesn't install OS X anytime soon...then his mac won't just "work"

Well, I have X installed on a TiBook and it works great.

Classic rocks better than 9.1 on its own... networking is faster... disk IO is faster.

What's not so fast is the UI in Carbon and Cocoa apps (menus, etc).... and the Finder needs serious work.

Apple's committed to resolving these issues... so X will get there for Carbon/Cocoa... its just not this sec.

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06/14, 07:16pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
It don't Care!

What's so special about his case? When he moved to the darkside, MacOS was already ahead of windowze. If he wants to come back after 4 frustrating years with peecee, then good for him. But it's nothing to celebrate!
Actually it sounds to me, he's trying to follw where the wind blows.

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06/15, 12:20am | report spam | close Reply | delete
return to forever

iWish iHad A Ti

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06/15, 01:08am | report spam | close Reply | delete
can't read it

Nice, his re-conversion I mean, but I'm unable to read the original article on my PPC upgraded PB-500-series machine, running OS 8.6 and IE 4.5. Blah...

I just mean to say, a lot of work waiting outthere.

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06/15, 01:14am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Stewart Alsop

It takes a lot of courage to admit one's mistakes in an open forum!!!

Alsop has done a lot of service to the cause of Macintosh World by admitting that Windows under any name and for however long one keeps it is still pure manure.

Hats Off to Alsop.

Viswakarma

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06/15, 04:38am | report spam | close Reply | delete
RE: Stuart Alsop

Hats Off to Alsop.

yeah, have him take his off, I wanna leave a present in it for him...

hes a writer for financial stuff, his loyalty goes for the profit margin company, just wait, he will switch back if Apple has a bad stock day.

--
Leach Field Coyote
--
Whom, when cut, STILL bleeds six colors, even if Apple has decided it wants to become a hazy shade of grey...
--

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Fortune's Alsop considers Mac conversion

updated 06:55 pm EDT, Wed June 13, 2001

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