John Dvorak: His End Seems Nigh
His latest article leaves an impression of a fading man (Nicolae Ceaucescu comes to mind) who is more to be pitied (now that Romania is free) than to be censured.
Everyone in journalism is biased in favor of the Mac platform.
No one else in journalism is [smart enough?] to use Windows.
Poor him.... Poor him.
Microsoft, of course, has done nothing to deserve anyone's disdain. Their products are all perfect, have been perfect in the past, and will be perfect in the future.
Perfect
V/R,
Aries 1B
Everyone in journalism is biased in favor of the Mac platform.
No one else in journalism is [smart enough?] to use Windows.
Poor him.... Poor him.
Quote:
As big and as important as Microsoft is, the coverage of the company is quite mediocre. This is particularly true in the mainstream press.
The reason for this is that today's newspaper and magazine tech writers know little about computers and are all Mac users. It's a fact.
This is why when Microsoft actually does have a good idea, people look to trash it out of hand. With 90 percent of the mainstream writers being Mac users, what would you expect?
The top columnists in the news and business magazines fit this model too. The technology writers fit this model. The tech writers and tech columnists for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and Fortune are all Mac users. I could list them by name, but I'd hate to leave one out. Maybe I'll blog them by name. I could list 50.
Readers should thus not be surprised by the overcoverage of Apple Computer (search). Every time Steve Jobs (search) sneezes, there is a collective chorus of "Gesundheit" from tech writers pounding away on their Macs.
This reality is not going to change. In fact it will only get worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer.
As big and as important as Microsoft is, the coverage of the company is quite mediocre. This is particularly true in the mainstream press.
The reason for this is that today's newspaper and magazine tech writers know little about computers and are all Mac users. It's a fact.
This is why when Microsoft actually does have a good idea, people look to trash it out of hand. With 90 percent of the mainstream writers being Mac users, what would you expect?
The top columnists in the news and business magazines fit this model too. The technology writers fit this model. The tech writers and tech columnists for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and Fortune are all Mac users. I could list them by name, but I'd hate to leave one out. Maybe I'll blog them by name. I could list 50.
Readers should thus not be surprised by the overcoverage of Apple Computer (search). Every time Steve Jobs (search) sneezes, there is a collective chorus of "Gesundheit" from tech writers pounding away on their Macs.
This reality is not going to change. In fact it will only get worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer.
Microsoft, of course, has done nothing to deserve anyone's disdain. Their products are all perfect, have been perfect in the past, and will be perfect in the future.
Perfect
V/R,
Aries 1B
Comments
less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer.
Doesn't he realize he just said the one thing that shows WHY MS coverage is mediocre at best? You have to be somewhat "qualified" to use Windows? It's that hard?
Dvorak appears on TWit with Leo, and he is a Mac user. I would love to hear Dvorak say Leo doesn't know how to use a computer.
Originally posted by Tulkas
The world is passing him by as he clings to his love of Windows.
"Whee. I am on the way to the moon" Kid on trampoline
Originally posted by rok
dvorak is in it for the money. he used to write for macuser, and he was all pro-mac. then left and became what eh is today. then he wrote a very short contributing piece for macworld recently, and was complimentary to the mac platform. basically, whoever's writing the checks gets his praise.
Bingo.
I saw him on TechTV and they were discussing downloading of movies. This was two or three years ago. he said no one would ever download movies because they are TOO BIG. This was seriously only two or three years ago, loooong after DivX took off.
I was like yeah, what a dumbass. GO TO COLLEGES. People don't rent movies at college. We download them. Seriously. I haven't rented movies in years. I just hit up Xfactor or Acquisition, leave for dinner of whatever, come back, and pop it open with VLC. That simple. Dvorak knows shit. Wish I had a clip of him, going "...people will never want to sit around, waiting for that, and they are just too big, it will never take off..." or something like that.
He is commparing apple, who make their own hardware, software and more, to microsoft, a company which makes windows, office, xbox and some media pcs (oh and mice, cant forget them, i have a microsoft mouse)
Anyway, if you compare the ammount of publicity windows gets to mac osx, i would say windows probably wins, but you cannot compare windows to the iPod, they are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PRODUCTS.
thats all for now
stu
Interesting segment and some VERY favorable comments about the iPod
j.
They know that if they make controversial statements that they will get far more recognized than if they sit there and make sense. Dvorak, Enderle et al. are whores for the camera or the mouse click on a web site. The worst you can do to them is ignore them.
Originally posted by Carson O'Genic
The worst you can do to them is ignore them.
Dead on. I used read his articles when people linked to them. I used to get pissed off at his seemingly endless ignorance. I used to even respond some times to his articles. Years ago I realized just stop reading. When sites link to the baiting articles, I just read what they have to say about it and move on. There is no reason to read his stuff. And if enough people realized this, the sooner the people that still pay his salary will realize it. That seems to be the main reason he is still around. He puts out baiting articles and his eyeballs go up in response. Stop reading his baiting articles and he would have to actually try and write about technology from a technological point of view. He obviously wouldn't be very good at that.
The slam is on journalists, folks, not Apple. It's not praise for Microsoft but disdain for journalists who claim to know what they're talking about but don't.
Either he is the epitome of an arrogant asshole, or he never really proof reads what he writes. Oh wait. There is a third option...Both!!!
Originally posted by CosmoNut
I respond only having read that quote above and listening to TWiT, but Dvorak in that quote seems to be only saying, "Windows is more complicated tech, and since most journalists use Macs, the *journalists* are less tech-savvy because of it. The journalists therefore cannot adequately analyze the tech in Windows because it is beyond the journalists' learning curve."
The slam is on journalists, folks, not Apple. It's not praise for Microsoft but disdain for journalists who claim to know what they're talking about but don't.
The slam is on Mac users in general. The gist of his comments being that Mac users are not a tech savvy in general. The slam is on the wide spread desire for Apple news, from Macs users and others. He brushes this aside as being a result of non-tech savvy tech writers. Basically, if you want general tech news and insight, you shouldn't look to a Mac using journalist.
Originally posted by Tulkas
The slam is on Mac users in general. The gist of his comments being that Mac users are not a tech savvy in general.
Sigh. I will emphasize (with bold) how you are wrong:
As big and as important as Microsoft is, the coverage of the company is quite mediocre. This is particularly true in the mainstream press.
The reason for this is that today's newspaper and magazine tech writers know little about computers and are all Mac users. It's a fact.
This is why when Microsoft actually does have a good idea, people look to trash it out of hand. With 90 percent of the mainstream writers being Mac users, what would you expect?
The top columnists in the news and business magazines fit this model too. The technology writers fit this model. The tech writers and tech columnists for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and Fortune are all Mac users. I could list them by name, but I'd hate to leave one out. Maybe I'll blog them by name. I could list 50.
Readers should thus not be surprised by the overcoverage of Apple Computer (search). Every time Steve Jobs (search) sneezes, there is a collective chorus of "Gesundheit" from tech writers pounding away on their Macs.
This reality is not going to change. In fact it will only get worse as technology coverage is handed to newer, less-qualified observers who simply cannot use a Microsoft Windows computer.
The most damaging part is probably the last paragraph, but he's still only talking about journalists. NOWHERE in that quoted section is he slamming Mac users in general.
And he's right, "tech journalists" are becoming more journalists that write about technology than tech professionals writing articles about technology. There's a key distinction there that he's bringing to the forefront.
AI Folks: The Judean People's Front?!
No-no-no, Mr. Dvorak!
AI Folks: Oh... oh yeah.
V/R,
Aries 1B
Originally posted by CosmoNut
Sigh. I will emphasize (with bold) how you are wrong:
The most damaging part is probably the last paragraph, but he's still only talking about journalists. NOWHERE in that quoted section is he slamming Mac users in general.
And he's right, "tech journalists" are becoming more journalists that write about technology than tech professionals writing articles about technology. There's a key distinction there that he's bringing to the forefront.
I'm not sure what the bolding was meant to high-light. Yes, you caught the explicit parts of his quote. Great. Implicit in the comments is that these writers do not know computers because they are mac users.
You may feel that he is not trying to tie the two concepts together, Mac user and techinically unknowledgable. Unfortunately, he gives them together as a single reason, purposely tying them together as a reason. That would have the same meaning as if he had more explicitly said, they are technically unknowledgable because they are Mac users.