KEY POINTS:
In ancient times, certain skills set you apart from the rest of society. Writing was one - Vikings revered anyone who could scratch runes as having magical powers. Some Celts put your eyes out if you showed musical ability - whether this fostered a lot of defensive atonal social grunting is not recorded. In the Middle Ages, alchemists caught the imagination for their chemical skills, real or imagined, and became the Medieval Go-To Guys of nobles, princes and kings.
In the industrial era, it was the engineers who carried the magic mantle as arbiters of a new society based on progress and production.
Now it's IT guys. And that's why some of them hate Macs.
How many IT departments roll their eyes and obfuscate as soon as you mention Macs? Too many.
Why? When you've built up your position on the arcane knowledge you possess, you are the one who people call when things go wrong, whether problems are glitchy or cataclysmic. They can sit there in their little wired eyries and, when it suits, venture forth to disseminate the anxiously awaited wisdom, upgrades and technical fixes - but only when they deign to.
That's not to say all IT people are like this, because many are fabulous, tireless, angelic and munificent (so don't stab at your keyboard quite yet for that comment). But I know that many readers will also have experienced the kind of defensive and secretive IT people I'm talking about.
So when some ingrate asks if they can have a Mac - or, much worse, actually rolls up with one - some IT people go into a veritable rain dance of anguish which involves pointing of bones, the ruffling of ceremonial feathers and the covering of backs. "Ooh no, it won't integrate into The System*," they wail.
"I don't have time to support another type of computer" or "It won't integrate!" "It's not on our program for software support!"
The looks on their faces when someone like me plugs in a MacBook, says "Great, I'm online. Of these printers my Mac can already see on your network, which one should I use?" is comical to say the least. Poor things. How dare a damn Mac user so casually deal to their mana?
Sure, some Macs need a little more work to get them into some systems - but not much. But the other 'problem' with Macs in business and educational institutions, from an IT person's viewpoint, is that Macs don't need much support.
I know of a large educational institution in Auckland with over 100 support staff listed, either for dealing with Windows problems or for providing PC-based professional development. Despite having several hundred Macs in the institution, there are only a couple of support people listed for Macs.
To add insult to injury, Macs mostly come with everything they need, both hardware and software-wise, to plug into existing systems (or even serve those differing systems themselves) and to get the job done. Well, that's Apple's ethos.
The fact that Macs can now run Windows as well pretty much dashes any objection an IT wonk could possibly posit. Check out this discussion on AnswersYahoo, for example.
Get over it.
(*The System is the IT deity: an obtuse information network made in their own image.)
- Mark Webster mac.nz
