Roopinder Tara's pet peeve #1: Keep it in your pants

by Roopinder Tara, Tenlinks.com

I’ve probably sat through hundreds of presentations given by excited CAD executives. So many times has one of them pulled out his iPhone to make a point that I am sick of it.

I can see it coming as they reach in. Then they pull it out. It's followed by something clever, like:

"10 years ago, it took a roomful of computers to do what this little thing does. I don’t need a user manual to operate this."

Hey! Look, just cause you have an iPhone, it doesn’t mean we all do. We might secretly want one, but that only makes us more resentful.

And stop porting all your software to every darn Apple product. Have any of you tried to look at E-size drawings on an iPhone for more than a few seconds? Yeah, it’s stupidly small. How about running CFD [computational fluid dynamics] on a MacBook Air?

I don’t have any Apple computers; nor am I yearning for any. (My daughter is; she is way cooler than me.) When I look around, I don’t see any engineers using them. Not for production work. Just writing this will ensure that I will be pelted by Mac enthusiasts, but like mysterious forces others insist upon, I still deny their existence without visual proof.

And while I’m at it, can you CEO guys stop trying to relate with us common folk. It’s not coming off. Your experiences are not our experiences. We are not jetting around the world. A few of us lucky ones may come to your annual user conferences; we don’t mind that you have to go all over the world, that’s OK, you run multinational companies. But even if your tools of the trade are smartphones and iPads, ours are still workstations with big hulking monitors, usually two of them. You can keep issuing news that this and that is now running on a laptop. Means nothing to us.

Oh, and another thing. We all might all have wives and drive cars in common, so we might let you get away with a little good old fashitioned wife/driving humor. But when the wife is driving a Mercedes... not cool.

Anybody else got any pet peeves? Besides bloggers going on rants, I mean.

[Reprinted with permission from CAD Insider.] 

Comments

[Kevin Quigley]

Lots of Mercedes about though aren't there :-)

http://www.deelip.com/?p=1394

[Kevin]

What is the pont of this post? Rants like this fule fanboys and perpetuate the yelling and flame posts that prevent any real discussion on these topics.

It would be far more useful to discuss the Mac trend in engineering.

It would be far more interesting to discuss how the consumer computing trends may eventual have side effects on business computing.

My pet peeve is that our industry is spending time polarizing issues like mobile, cloud and alternate platforms rather than having fact based discussions on these topics that help inform readers.

[Ralph Grabowski]

The point of this post? Why, the free expression as guananteed by the Canadian Bill of Right, and similar documents in other countries.

[Rande Robinson]

Way to go Roopinder ( you to Ralph for the repost)....

[Kevin E]

I can't imagine buying any other laptop for engineering use but a MacBook Pro. The constructed much better, they are lighter, they are thinner, their batteries last longer, they aren't plastic, their screens are better. Also notice that Apple drives the designs and other manufacturers follow.

I would say that I use Windows about 90% of the time and OSX about 10% of the time, so I'm not Mac fanatic. I think I am pretty neutral. But I won't be buying a POS Dell or HP anytime soon.

I also find it interesting that if you spec out a Mac Pro and a Dell Precision or HP Workstation equally, the price between these machines is pretty small.

[Tony]

Kevin,
It's a matter of opinion. I'd say Lenovo laptops are much better designed than Apple laptops. Not as sexy, but better designed. It starts at the keyboard -- Apple's keyboards are crap.

It's nice to see that Apple has recently been including some decent graphics chips (instead of just Intel junk), but they still don't offer Quadro or FireGL chips for the MBP (unlike HP, Dell, and Lenovo laptop workstations).

Pricewise, there's no comparison either. You have to compare realistic Dell, HP, or Lenovo prices (with their frequent sales) against Apple's list prices. Besides, Dell and Lenovo have outlet stores with good pricing, unlike Apple and HP.

Besides, I like desktops with big monitors for real work.

[Kevin E]

I guess my point is, I'm not writing an article about how I will never use a PC. Isn't it just as silly to say you won't use something because of what it is as it is to be a fanboi of something?

I don't care about Quadro or FireGL. Pro graphics is a very small portion of graphics card vendors sales. DirectX is where the benefits are right now on the Windows side. Just look at how often pro cards are refreshed compared to gaming cards.

[Tony]

Kevin,
Hey, if a MBP works for you, great. It all depends on what you value. I happen to value great keyboards, portability, good value, good quality, and good design (not style).

(Side note: the only Mac I find enticing is the MBA; it does have wonderful style, a great quality feel (except for the keyboard),and it works well with Win7. But I buy laptops to be useful, not eye candy).

But your praise of the MBP was a little over the top.

[Kevin]

Tony.

This is your point of view. Your point of view is not fact. There are other points of view and they are as valid as your own.

In my opinion I value, stability, portability, great keyboard, great graphics, great screen, good battery live and good design. This is why I like my MBP 17".

[DF]

@ Kevin

Very, very true.

[Bill Fane]

PC vs MAC: Hey, people, in future can we stick to relatively less controversial topics such as politics or religion?

Oops, I forgot; PC vs MAC is a religion...

[Ken Elliott]

I remember when the news media blasted Carol Bartz - then CEO of Autodesk - for not "getting" the Internet. Suddenly we had AutoCAD 2000i (i=Internet). From what I remember, the only "feature" it added over ACAD 2000 was a "AutoCAD Today" startup screen. It hit an Autodesk web site to show you any news. Carol had a lot of "hits" to prove she got the Internet.

Ever since then, it seems that CEOs like to show off the latest toys, so they don't get accused of not "getting" the latest fad.

Oh yeah - after Microsoft did an update to Internet Explorer, AutoCAD 2000i would lockup when started. It was launching IE to display that web page, and the update messed all that up. So all it really did is make the product dependent on somebody else's code.

I suspect memories like this may be a reason for RG's post. CAD has so many problems that go unresolved for years, yet too many CEO's seem to be focused on the next big thing.