Who Pays Today’s Techno Pundits To Write Drivel?

Sometimes I cannot believe what I read in mainstream media. Not just USA Today or Wall Street Journal. Their reputations are tainted already.

Techno publications and their pundits should know better. They don’t. Sometimes I think they’re subsidized by Microsoft.

How else can you explain some of the ridiculous statements, illogic, and ludicrous conclusions from the Windows apologists in the media?

The latest comes from our old friend, Rob Enderle, who seemingly ranks high on Microsoft’s payroll, near the top of that lengthy list of techno pundits who know no shame.

His latest is a brief prognostication of 2007. Right on the heels of Apple’s best year, best quarter, best sales, best profits, best stock price, what does Enderle say?

Apple’s “forecast suggests that 2007 may be starting out as one of Apple’s worst years this decade.” What?

Yes, Apple’s conservative guidance for Q2 2007 has been translated into “Apple’s worst years this decade.” Even Scott Bakula couldn’t make that Quantum Leap so easily.

So, all of a sudden, Apple will go into a tailspin because of the iPhone and conservative financial guidance? Yes. Sure. That makes sense. But where? In Bizzaroland?

Here’s what drugs will do to your senses and sense of logic.

Very few people have seen and used either phone, certainly Rob isn’t among the privileged, so he’s immediately qualified to determine that one is a hit and the other is a drag on earnings.

Wait. There’s more drivel. Drivel that someone is paying money to be written, published, and ridiculed.

See? The $500 iPhone is going to cut into sales of the $199 iPod nano or the $79 iPod shuffle. I think not. But it’s my fault. I’m thinking logically and reasonably.

To be a techno pundit these days, neither attribute is required.

Of course, this is pure drivel from the same Rob Enderle who said 2005 would be a tragic year for Apple. The same Rob Enderle who said the iMac “isn’t a good desktop design, seems poorly thought out” despite awards, kudos and record sales to the contrary.

He’s also the same Rob Enderle who said Apple’s “4th quarter (2006) would be Apple’s hardest since the first iPod Christmas.”

Compare that to the facts: Apple’s best blowout quarter ever—iPods, sales, profits, and stock price bump. Rob is so good at prognosticating all things Mac, Windows, and IT, that the safe bet is to bet against anything he writes.

Could Rob be on Microsoft’s payroll? Does Microsoft fund literary techno hacks to spread such 100-percent pure drivel? I have no evidence other than the likes of Rob Enderle and his endless supply of ridiculously formed ideas on technology.

Who else but Microsoft would pay for such writing on the wall?