Jul
9
Ubuntu meets the Mac guy
July 9, 2006 |
In their current series of ads the folks at Apple anthropomorphize the Mac and Windows operating systems. They represent Windows as conservative, traditional, and a bit uncertain. The Mac guy, on the other hand is fun-loving, hip, and confident. I can’t help but wonder what the Ubuntu Linux person would look like. Ubuntu is the latest, and most popular, manifestation of the open source Linux OS.
The Ubuntu community is built on the ideas enshrined in the Ubuntu Philosophy: that software should be available free of charge, that software tools should be usable by people in their local language and despite any disabilities, and that people should have the freedom to customise and alter their software in whatever way they see fit.
Ubuntu is being touted as the OS to watch, a contender that might possibly don the mantle of the “David” that Mac has perennially shouldered in their role as foil to Window’s Goliath. Much is being made of the fact that some longtime Mac loyalists such as Cory Doctorow and Mark Pilgrim have broken ranks and have placed themselves in the Ubuntu camp.
Some, including the folks at O’Reilly, are predicting that this spells trouble for Apple. What it really spells is the next stage in the institutionalization of operating systems. Guys like Doctorow and Pilgrim are “innovators” and “early adopters” in the realm of technology diffusion. It is not surprising that they would be attracted to Ubuntu. Their defection means that Mac has been mainstreamed. In the sixties we were warned not to trust anyone over 30 and while Mac is in its early 20’s, in relative terms Mac has passed the 30 mark and it now part of the establishment.
This is good news for Apple. If Ubuntu, or another of its ilk, becomes the new, cutting edge OS then Apple becomes a mainstream alternative for “early” and “late” majority adopters who might otherwise see Windows as the only mainstream alternative. It takes a high profile upstart such as Ubuntu to increase the Mac OS’s legitimacy in the eyes of the average consumer. If this spells trouble for anyone it is Windows. They will now have to contend with “Mac” the mature young adult with just the right blend of ‘hip’ and ‘maturity’. Leave the radical chic to the Ubuntu guy.
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