You know working for Microsoft but carrying an Apple Mac can earn you some strange looks.  People are often asking me why I use the Mac (and others how I get away with it!).  I thought I’d explain here on my blog because there are several good reasons.  Firstly let me start by saying this beast runs Windows Vista better than any other laptop (or desktop come to that) that I have ever owned.  From a hardware point of view, it is phenomenally well design and is just blazingly fast (a Windows Experience Index of 5.9!) - so even if I was only ever interested in running Windows, I think I’d still want this machine.  However, I do also run OS X on this box.  There are two driving reasons for this, the first being that we should always be prepared to learn from people that can do things better than we can.  Apple *really* get usability.  Mac OS X quite simply can not do everything that Windows does, and these areas are of primary concern to Enterprise users, but what it does do it does with such fluidity, such grace, that it is a pure pleasure to use.  At Microsoft we need to be humble and learn that it can be done better - and if it can be done better it should be done better.

Secondly, consider what I do for a living.  My focus is in Service Oriented Architecture.  Principally this is about making IT services available for consumption by other IT services in an open manner, without regard to the platform that the service is written on or the platform on which it is to be consumed.  When we live and work in a homogeneous world it is easy to assume away the details and just declare yourself compatible by virtue of following “open standards”.  However, when we work daily with heterogeneous systems we are continually reminded that it is the little details, so often overlooked, that make this goal so difficult.  I use my Mac like a character in one of my favorite books (the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever) uses a cut-throat razor blade.  Thomas Covenant was a leper.  Apparently what kills lepers is not so much the disease itself, but the injuries that they sustain (which they can not feel and therefore do not correctly tend to).  Thomas Covenant shaved every morning with a cut-throat razor to remind himself of how his life depended on vigilance.  My Mac reminds me every day that Great is not Good Enough if it can be Better and that my job is to break down barriers, not to erect them.  I do not want to “win” because Windows has a stranglehold via unpublished API’s or de facto standards.  If the Windows platform is selected by a customer over any other, I only consider it a “win” if it is because we just flat out provide a better value proposition on our own merits.

Some at Microsoft would agree with me here and some would not.  To the latter I say “go in peace my friends, go in peace”.