My father was one of the first people in line to buy the original Apple Macintosh. You know, the original 128K version.

For years, he has stuck by Apple, buying Mac after Mac. Resisting the Siren's Call of Windows, he sat upon the shrinking Mac Fortress with other fanatics, as he watched his sons eagerly embrace the dark side.

Today I recieved a phone call:

Me: Hello?
Dad: Hi, I'm in Costco. Can I ask you a question?
Me: Sure, what's up?
Dad: I'm looking at a HP Pavilions PC. I think I'm going to have to switch over to the dark side.
Me: You're switching to Windows?
Dad: Well, I'll have to hold my nose and use it because of Outlook.

We went on to discuss the fact that his office is all PC and that they want to get the Outlook/Exchange thing up and running. It's the right move, and he knows it. He doesn't like it, but he can read the writing on the wall.

Steve Jobs needs to be afraid, very afraid. When you start losing customers that have been buying your products for 15 years, you have some problems.

While the new Flower Power iMac may look purty, my Dad really doesn't give a fuck about cutsy, retro design scheme. What he cares about is a computer that works with the office. Apple can't supply that, so they lose yet another customer.