Taking the good with the bad (Score 1)

I'm currently working at a University as part of the technology procurement department. We are officially a PC platform University, but we have no choice but to support the Mac platform as it is essential to many different fields of study. Since OS X has come out, I've become a true believer in Mac Products. A majority of our Science and Education departments must use Mac. There is equipment, software, and processes, that just don't let you get around this fact. However, our campus has found that at this time there is no pressing need to upgrade our campus to OS X from OS 9. A majority of the software that is used requires OS 9, and will not run under X in classic mode. Our Graphics design and marketing people have upgraded to OS X, but they are using programs that have been write as OS resident. The bulk users of our client base are still needing to be in 9 for their day to day uses. The reality of the situation is that Apple needs to make a choice; a choice that every solution provider of any kind must make. Should they continue to foster and encourage the development of the old way of doing business, in an effort to make their old school clients feel more comfortable? Or should they push they focus on the new way of doing business so not to be left in the dust as others are being innovative? I really think the core issue that everyone has been dancing around, will still be an issue weather this rumor turns out true or not. Apple has always done things their own way. In a world where companies are merging, and people don't believe in the integrity of Corporate America, Apple has one thing going for them. They have a cult following that is more dedicated than any following Bill Gates and Microsoft ever had. They realize this, and like an earlier post mentioned, they make decision that their customer base may not like. Getting rid of legacy support brought a lot of flak from main stream computer users, however it has only strengthen Apple and the communities that Apple has been loyal to all these years. Scientists are still using Mac for a lot of their lab work, and their instruments are becoming more and more Firewire and USB compatible. Why? Not because it's a more efficant was of transmitting data, but because Apple has forced this area of study to move forward into a new age of computer uses. Here is the crux of whole thing. We Americans are very proud of our freedom. The western world psychology is built on a believe that I as a human being have a free will, and the ability to choose my own destiny. This is something engaged in our psyche. What is freaking people out is that Apple has in the past, and could possibly in the future, decided for it's users what their next computer platform will look like. In the PC industry I find that the push is to make what we currently have work faster and better because the users want to get home to their life away from work faster. Such people are critics of the Apple culture and try to make Apple users look like brainless automatons who have to have their computer decisions made for them by Apple. This is a warped image. Apple has consistently pushed their hardware into the new age of computing, and at time even admitting that they had gone the wrong way and needed to find a new direction (apple serial ports). But Apple has always looked out for it's customers and done what's best for them in Apple's eyes. So if this sounds like I've brain washed by Big Brother Apple, I don't know how to come back at that. But I will say this: Just because I don't like get an infinite choice of computers abilities to work with, doesn't mean that I don't the worlds most kick but computer (G4 Power Book). Yes Apple can make mistakes, but I would rather be a part of an innovative mistake, then sit back and miss out on the opportunity of being part of something that is cutting edge and exciting. I'm a geek who likes to see the possibility of computer expand, and I see apple as being on the for front of that frontier. So if Apple does decide to stop shipping OS 9 with OS X and new systems, what will it hurt. Yes there will be people inconvenienced, and yes people will be upset. But technology will go forward. That's progress, a sometimes misunderstood term. The very idea of progress is that a group of people change a way of life for all people in a particular setting for the better. We western thinkers don't like this because it's a change that we can't control, and that means we are no longer deciding our own destiny. So suck it up, the fact of life is you don't have control over you life, so deal with it. What will come will come, and good or bad we will deal with it.