Vassar Technology Today | There's something political about Mac and PC

Matthew Leung Columnist

During October break, the front page of Apple’s Web site featured a picture of Al Gore. A coincidence, some may say, but it seems reasonable to say that computing has a conservative versus liberal division similar to that of electoral politics.

Affiliating popular products with either side of the liberal versus conservative dichotomy is not novel.
The car company Volvo, for example, was the basis for the term “Volvo liberal” in the 1970s, partly because the company is based in socialist Sweden.

For many people, Apple’s slogan “Think Different,” which began in the 90s and was used until 2002, points to the company’s liberal leanings. Apple established this slogan when it lost the race with Microsoft to enter the mainstream business market. The company aired a commercial to explain what it means. “Here’s to the crazy ones,” the jingle went, “The misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules.”

Microsoft, meanwhile, monopolized the business industry, first with the traditional DOS and then the new Windows operating system. In the process, Microsoft engaged in many questionable corporate practices that led to anti-trust and monopoly lawsuits, such as United States versus Microsoft in 1998. In that case, which prosecuted Microsoft for trying to bundle Internet Explorer with the Windows package, the Supreme Court initially ruled to break up the company. That ruling was overturned and in 2001 the Department of Justice and Microsoft reached a less-severe settlement. Some claimed that the initial ruling was an attempt to limit free market business practices. Others still look at Microsoft’s corporate actions and see a link to the company’s conservative nature.

Vassar, a relatively liberal institution, is a self-proclaimed Mac campus. It also so happened that the 2000 Democratic National Convention signed a contract with Apple to use its computers and technologies exclusively.

Despite the seemingly transparent political leanings of Apple and Microsoft, debates about such possible leanings have received almost no attention in mainstream technology publications. It is a sensitive topic that technology professionals do not want to deal with. What comes out of the relatively hushed debate?

Those in denial, such as CEO of Apple Steve Jobs and the Public Relations department of Apple, claim that the appearance of political conflict is just that—an appearance. Microsoft won the race to dominate the corporate market, so it seems likely that a lot of Windows users are conservative. Apple, in turn, invested in the education market and offered unprecedented discounts to schools such as Vassar, hence a liberal campus such as Vassar just happens to be a Mac campus as well.

Workers in the corporate world could care less about the style and sleekness of the computers they use, so PCs have long conformed to the plain black box model. Apple, on the other hand, has traditionally emphasized style and creativity, making their computers not only honed for handling graphics but sleek in style as well.

The extreme Mac enthusiasts, called the “Cult of Mac” by author Leander Kahney in his book by the same title, happen to be leftists and radicals. Also, in many gay communities I’ve seen, which also tend to be liberal, Macs tend to be very popular.

The other side of the debate, a popular view with outspoken bloggers, says there are no such things as accidents. In multiple cases, Microsoft confessed to obtaining data regarding user habits in Windows without notifying users. Many claim, that such a Big Brother act is another telltale sign of Microsoft being a conservative corporation.

Apple’s lack of conformity and outlandish designs also attract likeminded users. Apple often employs brightly flashing and twirling colors in its designs and its advertising. Up until 1998, it also had a logo of a rainbow-colored silhouette of an apple with a bite taken out of it, which some claim is an allusion to Adam's defiance of God.

Some might doubt the cogency of this debate, since over the past decade Apple has gained popularity in the mainstream market with the MacBook, iPod and iPhone. Despite this integration, the division between Windows and Mac and the corresponding political ties are just as strong as in the past, if not more so. Even though Mac users can purchase a license of Windows for a few hundred dollars to run it on an Intel-based, many technologies and applications run exclusively on Windows.

In the past, Internet Explorer (IE) and Windows Media Player (WMP) ran on both Windows and Mac. However, in January 2006, Microsoft stopped distributing and supporting IE for the Mac. Web sites that work only in IE, which once had a 97 percent monopoly of the Web browser market, could no longer be viewed on a Mac. WMP was also unavailable for Mac users starting in January 2006. Media protected with Microsoft’s proprietary digital rights management (DRM) technologies cannot be played on the Mac.

Many popular online multimedia distributors, such as Ruckus (a free music download service) and Netflix (online movie rental and streaming), still work exclusively in Windows. This exclusivity has led many to complain that these companies discriminate against Mac users. Most computer games still cannot run on Macs, and many applications, including Symantec’s line of security products, have little or no compatibility with the latest Macs.

Of course, it would be silly to suggest that it is possible to know peoples’ political leanings just by the computers they use. In fact, people usually choose computer products based on pricing and usability and are ambivalent to any political connections the products may have. However, it is interesting to note the intersection of politics with Windows and Mac and the struggles that ensue, whether you believe that the ties are created intentionally or simply developed by circumstance. The division between Windows and Mac is not merely a difference in operating systems, but a division with rich and deep ties to society and politics.