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About this siteFor six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul Tuesday, March 06, 2007Being reasonable worksA few days ago, I linked to and criticized a Blackfriars article called "Dawning of the Age of Apple." Carl Howe, the author of that article, has responded, and his follow-up is a wonderful lesson to the Mac faithful about how you can have a positive dialog with critics:Having done similar sizings of markets when I was an analyst, I understand the skepticsm. Every sizing has some amount of bias and inaccuracy due to methodology and survey limitations (let me know if you want concrete examples; suffice it to say that no one has perfect data here. Want proof? Here's the first one: Gartner's and IDC's numbers never match). Further, both Gartner and IDC tend to revise their market share numbers a lot as new data comes in. Therefore, the real trick in getting a clear picture of where markets are going is in looking at lots of data from many sources and synthesizing them into a coherent whole, not focusing on a single source of data and claiming it is "the" number.Now, I still don't agree with all this. His argument is still faith-based, rather than reality-based: He continues to cite anecdotal events as proof that Apple is in the middle of some huge turnaround. My contention is not that this is untrue, but rather that we need to wait and see on concrete data that only Apple can (and will) provide. But that's fine: Another lesson you learn as an adult is that we don't always have to agree, and everyone has different opinions. It's how you react to those differences that communicate the kind of person you are. And Mr. Howe is clearly a good guy. This is like a welcome breath of fresh air when you consider the vitriol that generally emanates from the Mac community whenever anyone casts any doubt on Apple's successes. Being a jerk is easy. Being reasonable is better for everyone. [ Posted at 12:50 PM | Permalink ]
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