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http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=1317
Cult of Mac: Even Linux, Unix Users are "Switching to Mac in Droves"
By Remy Davison, Insanely Great Mac
December 2nd 2002
25 million and counting.
Even Gil Amelio knows a captive market when he sees one. For Amelio, it was the 'cult
of Macintosh' which kept Apple alive during the horror story that was the mid 1990s.
Now, says a Wired story, psychologists are even searching for a theory explaining this
form of cultism. One explanation is, simply, that Apple is the antithesis of Microsoft:
"To Mac users, Apple represents everything that Microsoft isn't. Apple innovates;
Microsoft copies. Apple puts out solid products; Microsoft puts out buggy ones. Apple
represents creativity and individuality; Microsoft represents business and conformity.
Apple is the scrappy underdog; Microsoft the big, predatory monopoly."
Linux attracts many of the same non-conformists; many Mac users are Linux users and
vice-versa.
And Mac people are less likely to 'switch'. The Wired story cites this year's dot-Mac
imbroglio, which saw the company lambasted for charging $99 for its on-line services.
Did people dump their Macs? No. Did they dump dot Mac? You betcha.
Most of the faithful also ponied up for Jaguar, despite its $129 price tag.
But this is the result of Apple being a monopoly, says an economics professor quoted
in the article. PC firms, he says, are more responsive due to compatition. Apple,
conversely, doesn't have to be.
Analysis: Neither the economic nor the psychological theories are especially
convincing. People who get annoyed enough with Apple can - and do - switch. Corporates
made that decision years ago.
Being anti-MS runs deep in the psyche, but there was a time when MS was a much smaller
company than Apple and Big Blue was the Big Bad. MS and the Windows monopoly is really
a 1990s thing.
Apple cultism can drive even the most stuffed-shirt companies to do the wildest
things. JP Morgan managed the 1980 Apple IPO as sideswipe at IBM which had earlier
asked JP Morgan's to co-manage a debt issue. Morgan's didn't 'co-run' issues (like
Steve Jobs doesn't 'co-host'). They declined IBM's offer, despite being managers for
IBM for decades. Their revenge was making Apple's IPO the biggest in history.
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