Home | Forums | Article Search | Subscribe & Shop | Contact Us | Log Out Apple Fanboys Email This Print This View My Personal Library What's Cooking August 2008 • Vol.8 Issue 8 Page(s) 103 in print issue Add To My Personal Library Apple Fanboys Wagging The Dog by Rahul Sood Rahul Sood's love for computers started at the young age of 11. Much to the shock and dismay of his parents, he ripped apart his brand-new Apple //c and painted it red before turning it on. His parents’ dreams of having a doctor for a son were shattered when college drop-out Rahul founded what is now one of the most respected high-end computer companies in the world, Voodoo Computers. It was a joke, on my birthday. It’s okay to laugh. . . . Until recently, I hadn’t felt the wrath of Apple fans since the time we successfully installed Windows on an old pre-Boot Camp iMac. I remember we made Windows work in order to do some performance comparisons and posted it on my blog. I received a ton of comments along with mail from Mac fans, most of whom accused us of making it up, some asking how we did it, and then a month or so later, Apple released Boot Camp. Before I go much further, I should try and give you some context as to what it’s like being a “youngish” CTO at HP with 20- to 30-something-year-old friends. In 2001, after Apple launched its iPod, I was watching closely to see how the media and the public reacted to a technology that wasn’t entirely new, but that was packaged and marketed in a somewhat revolutionary way. Shortly after the launch, we witnessed cool companies jumping at the chance to create accessories for the iPod. Burton Snowboards, for example, created an iPod-compatible vest, complete with controls built in below the front pocket. Back then, I knew that Apple was on to something, but getting people to listen was a bit of a struggle. While Apple continued to focus on cool design and customer experience, the iPod started to make inroads as a brand with young people while the rest of the industry was focused on selling volume devices. In the years that followed, Apple continued to create meaningful experiences and beautiful software, mostly appealing to young people as they continued to build their business on the back of music. It was during this period that the people I hung around with started to buy Apple products for their cool factor, and even though many of my friends own Voodoo products, Apple was their choice for mainstream computing. Several years later, I find myself working at HP, and as I’ve said before, I love this company. HP understands what the market lacks and is good at meeting those needs, but this becomes increasingly difficult as HP caters to markets on a grand, global scale. We sell millions of systems a month to people from all walks of life. We are managing three brands (Compaq, HP, and Voodoo), a massive number of SKUs, and we are growing at an incredible rate. It’s hard to imagine a company the size of HP growing further, but the fact is we are, and we realize the challenges that are ahead of us. We are creating beautiful devices that are cool, simple to use, and meaningful. We relaunched Voodoo on June 10th, a process that began with our old Web site beginning to burn down on June 6th. We are even working on our own internal software to make the overall experience better. Anyway, back to my friends. I have friends from many backgrounds, but the common thread we all share is our love of technology. I take constant ribbing over the Mac vs. PC debate, but I like to think that I have a good sense of humor. We all enjoy the Apple ads with the young, hip Mac guy and the stiff, middle-aged PC guy. So for my birthday, I went to my friend Jeff’s house for a party with some friends. They surprised me with a cake, and when Jamie from PhoneTag jokingly handed me a MacBook Air as a gift, I immediately cut the cake with it. Everyone was in hysterics, and really, it was just a joke. I can build notebooks in my sleep; I assure you no Macs were harmed in the taking of the photo. Well, Jamie posted it on his blog, and I wrote an explanation on mine, and all of the sudden it was everywhere. Mac fans were going crazy; I received more than 150 messages from various mediums in a period of two hours. Many recognized the joke, while others were simply unreasonable. Why is it that some people can poke fun at PC and Windows users all the time, yet when someone makes a simple joke by cutting a cake with a fairly sharp product, he gets blasted by a bunch of angry fans? Whatever the answer is, I applaud Apple for successfully maintaining a fan base—it’s no easy task—and I humbly suggest to Apple fans that it’s OK to laugh at yourself once in a while. 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