Friday, February 04, 2005

Hell hath no fury like a Mac user scorned. Run an article about Apple and you usually get a steady trickle of reader comments. Run one that questions or criticises any aspect of Apple strategy, products or leadership and the trickle becomes a deluge. And the accusations of 'Mac bashing' soon follow.

Within the fan base exists a highly vocal minority which tolerates no criticism of its beloved company and attacks any real (or indeed imagined) slight of Apple in online fora with savage intensity.

It's this minority that seems to be under some form of mass hypnosis - perhaps some far-reaching extension of Steve Jobs' 'reality distortion field' - thinking that Apple can do no wrong and is a panacea for all the IT wrongs in the world.

The collective moral outrage does Apple evangelists, and by extension the company itself, no favours. The vitriol seems particularly misplaced in online forums read worldwide by thousands of senior technology professionals and business decision makers holding the IT purse strings.

With its new products, overflowing coffers and über-brand, Apple has the best chance in years of making serious inroads into the corporate space.

Apple has grown up, one can only hope that this particular vocal minority of its fans can follow suit.