Apple's marketing to SJSU

What I think Apple does right, and not
In my opinion if markets are conversations, if you combined what Apple does and what Microsoft does you be just about right in how you reach my world. Apple has two people assigned to cover SJSU and other local campuses, plus a part-time student rep assigned just to SJSU.

The Apple folks hold regular events at our campus that are open to the world. They also teach seminars to SJSU faculty and staff. At these events they showcase Apple solutions, technologies and products. They know who we are. They are like one of us. Their relationships with administrators, faculty, staff, students (especially system admins, techs and other IT folks) assure that Apple solutions are at least considered. Through these reps Apple has a personal presence on our campus. I feel they care about us and care enough to know us by name. It is a very human relationship. They evangelize all things Mac and nuture campus evangelists. But, above the campus level I feel there is a void. There is no voice directly from Infinite Loop. Apple has no voice that sees the big picture and has access to top level Apple visionaries like Microsoft does.

Microsoft has Robert Scoble, he is a very human, genuine and very real voice located right in Redmond. He has access and showcases Microsoft solutions and products and gives a very human face and voice to the company. His blog is not PR BS. He says what he thinks his company does wrong, admits to mistakes, and puts his heart and passion into what he is doing. But, he is only one person in a very big world. I have no idea who the Microsoft reps are for SJSU. Perhaps Microsoft is counting on its OEMs to showcase their products on our campus. But, from my perspective, that is not happening. You cannot even see a decent Tablet PC in the bookstore at SJSU.

I have no idea who the Microsoft rep is for SJSU. I see little evidence of Microsoft initiative efforts. There is almost no evangelizing of Vista going on. It is so bad that one of my colleagues recently expressed his opinion that he thought Vista, then named Longhorn, would be based on UNIX!

I love Macs, but I also love and understand the principles behind Microsoft Windows NT based technologies. As a former sys admin I appreciate the level of granularity and control available through NTFS and group policies. I would love to know more about how they're evolving. I am Microsoft certified and am interested in staying current and learning more about Microsoft solutions.

Apple's SJSU team makes staying current and learning more easy on campus. Scoble makes staying current and learning more easy on the Internet. I wish one company would do both.