Dale Carnegie & Associates Inc. is probably best known for its book and seminar series, How to Win Friends and Influence People . A recent move by the organization to discontinue Mac support isn’t winning the company any friends among the Mac faithful.
In an email sent to the organizations training franchises, Dale Carnegie & Associates Inc. (DCA) said that support for Apple hardware would be discontinued as of January 1, 2003. The company further stated that Apple’s latest operating system, Mac OS X, would not be supported at all.
In explaining the decision the email said, “The plain fact of the matter is that Macintosh computer systems are becoming increasingly sparse in business today. Because of this, the technicians and software needed to support the Mac based systems is becoming difficult if not impossible to get. The major software companies like Microsoft, IBM and Computer Associates have either stopped coding for the Mac OS altogether or they are far behind the times when it comes to their release of Macintosh based products.”
“DCA anticipates that this trend will only continue and become even more severe as time moves on,” the email continued.
Microsoft has been a staunch supporter of Mac OS X since its introduction; the company shipped Office v. X on November 19, 2001. IBM has also shown support for Mac OS X, shipping ViaVoice on November 16, 2001.
“Microsoft continues to be fully committed and invested in developing for the Mac platform,” Erik Ryan, product manager for Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit, told MacCentral. “This is clearly evident with our recent release of Office v. X for Mac, as well as our other Mac products.”
With its Unix underpinnings, increased stability and new interface, Mac OS X is the most advanced operating systems available to computer users today. However, Dale Carnegie thinks that Windows stability makes it a strong contender.
“The Windows environment is very common today and the Windows 2000 design is one of the most stable and reliable operating systems released under the Windows umbrella. Applications and support are readily available and will be in the future, which makes it easier for us to operate in a Windows based environment.”
Christopher Addeo from Dale Carnegie & Associates explained to MacCentral that the decision actually had more to do with his organization’s applications than with other companies’ support of the Mac OS, as the email indicated.
“We have a lot of proprietary code and proprietary databases built in Access and they’re all customized for our organization,” Addeo told MacCentral.
“Economically speaking, when you compare the single digit percentage of Mac users we have compared to the rest of our organization, it just did not make sense to continue coding and testing products for the Mac OS,” said Addeo.