The pulse of Alexander Interactive

Apparently switching operating systems isn’t easy. Besides the issues that people talk about (Can I run my apps? Is it faster? Is it better?) there are all sorts of personal identity issues tied up in the operating system one chooses.

(Pausing a moment for full disclosure: my personal operating system history, in reverse order, is Mac OS X, SuSE Linux, Red Hat Linux, Windows 9x/NT, Mac 6/7/8/9, TRS-DOS, PET, and whatever happened to be running on the DEC-10 with the dumb terminal and the roll of paper. Also there have been a few side-dalliances with FreeBSD and Win 2k.)

Initially I didn’t think of an OS as a separate entity from a computer. It was just part of the computer, what showed up when I turned on the old TRS-80. We can thank Microsoft for making us think of the operating system as a thing in itself, other than an inherent attribute of a computer.

At the beginning of the 90′s I started to work on Macs because that’s what was going on in the music world, where I was operating. This was about when Windows 95 came out, and in retrospect it was a pretty dark time for Mac. People were crowing about how Windows 95 eliminated any need to get a Mac. They really took it personally.

(A couple of years later, I abandoned the Mac because I was getting into Java programming, and the Java runtime sucked on the Mac. Macintosh Runtime for Java. MRJ. I remember it well. Bleh.)

Working on the Internet led me to discovering UNIX. I wanted it. I suddenly came to the realization that the Internet was really a UNIX-centric place. UNIX and the Internet just seemed to go nicely together, in a way that Windows simply did not. I downloaded the super-cool, incredibly indie Red Hat distribution (wow, times have sure changed) and pretty soon was installing it everywhere, including on my IBM laptop.

Fast forward to more recently – when Mac OS X came out, and I realized I could have UNIX on my laptop, and all of the shiny Mac stuff (including commercial audio production software) all on one OS.

Now I’ve never used XP much, and don’t have an opinion about Vista. Apparently some otherwise happy Windows users don’t like Vista. The complaints I’m hearing are along the lines of “too slow, fancy UI chrome doesn’t actually enhance usability, security features drive me insane” and so on.

One of the biggest sins seems to be that after 5 years of nothing from Microsoft (and during the course of many, many OS X upgrades), Vista simply wasn’t as jaw-droppingly amazing as it should have been.

Well for whatever reason, a number of people I know, who were previously staunch Windows users, are bailing. But they’re bailing under protest. They hate the idea of being part of the herd, and joining those dirty hippies in the cult of Mac.

The idea that one’s consumer habits are part of their identity isn’t terribly new, but it is kind of fascinating for me to watch people struggle with reconciling the apparent conflict between the technical and user experience benefits associated with switching to Mac, with the danger that they’ll become yet another latte-swilling zombie, wandering aimlessly under the influence of the mighty Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field tm.

To which I say: folks, its all temporary anyway. Apple makes the best stack right now, but someday they’ll get knocked off by something easier, faster, more powerful and yes, sexier. And then you’ll find me switching. And I won’t be losing sleep over it.