May 24, 2005

Marketing: Get the Geeks!

Apple is a marketing genius and it's about time. For decades computer users have been plagued with Microsoft dominance. Windows has saturated the Operating System market which has made it a favorite target for identity thieves, hackers, and virus makers. During those years, the quest was on for something better. I think that most of computer users have become accepting of the "Blue Screen of Death" as well as other wonderful Windows features that makes life miserable and frustrating.

Enter OS X.

Apple did what I think was a stroke of brilliance to regain the audience. They went after the geeks. They built an OS based on BSD, a popular Unix environment for geeks which made them giddy as school boys. Build to be robust as well as easy to use, OS X is a marvel and a thing of beauty to behold as well as a much welcomed breath of fresh air for power users.

Why is that genius? Who do the novices of the computer world call to get help with all of their problems? It is usually a friend or relative who has the reputation of being a geek. What will the geek recommend to their fellow novice who's new PC computer starts locking up after only 3 months of use? What will the geek recommend when that friend or relative calls frantically because their computer has been infected with a virus, trojan, etc. ? What will the geek recommend when their parents call because they can't get their photos off of their new digital camera -- and when they do they don't know where they went -- and when they finally do find them they accidentally deleted them?

The answer is obvious, "Dude, you should buy a Mac." Yes, get the Mac. Make the move. Life will be much easier on us all.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How true it is... A couple of weeks ago, my neighbors were planning to go to CompUSA and pick up a new PC, and they asked if I could meet them there and help them choose one. Then, an hour before they were planning to go, they called and said that their friend in Salt Lake had recommended that they get a Mac Mini instead, and did I know anything about those (yes -- in fact, I had mentioned that possibility too, when they were first thinking of getting a new computer), and could I help them get one of those instead? (Again, yes). They're very happy with their new Mac, and I'm very happy that they won't be needing me to support another Windows machine :)