It’s no secret that I don’t like iPhones or Macs.  What does this mean?  It means that I don’t like them but I couldn’t care less if you have an entire warehouse of them.  In fact, I hope you do; they’re a license to print money.

As the guy who makes the corporate IT decisions, I have to use my best judgment.  When PDA phones started to explode, I saw the writing on the wall, did some comparisons, and recommended the Palm Treo as the corporate standard (PalmOS only).  Two of us already owned them, they fulfilled corporate criteria, we got a volume deal with the carrier, and they were very supportable.

It took no time at all for people to start purchasing other-than-Treo phones, as that’s the kind of place in which I toil.  We had to (re)make it clear that we could only support one platform.  We are not staffed to spend huge amounts of time learning each and every phone someone can purchase and their particular foibles.  Since we use Windows on our desktops, there was no way in hell we were going to allow it on phones.  I prefer to answer my phone, not reboot it all day.

After the Big Bosses<tm> got Treos, it wasn’t too difficult to make our point about support and everyone fell in line.  Hint: always buy the insurance.

By the same token, our desktop policy was to use Windows (2000 or XP at the time).  We preferred not to have anything else on the network and everything had to be firewalled/antivirused regardless.  This lasted until a few bright individualists decided they had to have Macs.  Fine, but we can’t support them beyond handing them a network cable.

You have to know where this is going… we are starting to become inundated with iPhones.  Even after we made our position clear, people expect us to leap when they snap their fingers.  I have no idea what it is but our company seems to breed this ridiculous sense of entitlement.  Heaven forbid one of them crack a manual or do any research before demanding service.

Just to put the cherry on this little support sundae, who else but the Boss shows up with an iPhone.  We all looked at each other, shaking our heads sadly.  We had to explain that none of us had ever seen an iPhone before, no less have a clue as to how to transfer the data from the recently-purchased Treo to the just-purchased iPhone.

Fortunately a fellow in a related group is an iPhone groupie.  You could tell how close Apple was to releasing the unit by the length of drool emanating from his mouth.  This poor fellow spent a few hours attempting to transfer the information and showing the Boss how to use the device.  Even his head hurt after this.

There is no polite way to ask the Boss what’s more important, keeping the network up or helping him with his new toy.  Fortunately he’s pretty reasonable this way.  Meanwhile my department is deep in group prayer that nobody else ever sees his iPhone.

The surprise will be theirs though… when Windows and Macs get the proverbial boot and we all use the One True Operating System: linux.

[cue evil laughter]