So here you are, in a room of 100 people (Group A). Of those 100, ninety of them agree on Product X and are very positive and engaged when speaking of X. The remaining 10 people (Group B) point out only the negatives of X, claim it "sucks" mainly because it doesn't do everything exactly the same as Product Y. Group B declare Group A are sheeple, drinking the Kool-Aid and need to wake up.

Group B, when asked to help the developer of Product X, Vendor Z, by discussing their concerns, react by saying "we've said what we don't like, Vendor Z isn't listening." Group B also seems to insist on posting to their blog an endless stream of obscenity, and claiming that Group A just needs to "deal with it."

For some reason Group B is greatly annoyed when they aren't having their ego stroked and rump kissed by everyone, especially the large corporation Vendor Z. All the while, Group B claim that they're "just saying what needs to be said."

Sound familiar? We've seen it recently in LotusLand when talking about the Lotus Notes 8.5 for Mac client. We've seen it on Midrange-L regarding the IBM i platform. We've also seen it on the blogs of certain people who think they're the divine enlightened ones because they are the only people with the guts to tell the truth and call out a vendor.

The gist of the argument seems to be that those who express the negative argument among a relative sea of positives are somehow automatically the only ones speaking the truth. Certainly there might be some truth to this in some cases. However, overall it's bunk.

Folks who go against the grain always seem to believe they're the only intelligent, thoughtful ones. I am sure in some ways I am guilty of this, as are many of us who are devotees of a particular product - be it from IBM,Apple, Microsoft, whatever. However, it still doesn't mean that those who voice the negative opinion against the general consensus are, by default, the only correct voices.

That's not saying it's verboten to call out a vendor for doing something stupid. It's how you do it that will ultimately determine if they're willing to listen to your comments. In the case of the Notes for Mac client discussion, certainly the author has some valid points...assuming everyone else is seeing the same thing he is, and I have reason to believe they aren't. But, due to the combative nature of the site, the post and pretty well everything surrounding the discussion, it's pretty clear the argument (and having someone suck-up to him) is what he's after, not a solution.

Before my current two week trip to Texas I decided to pick up a Sprint Mobile Broadband adapter. I figured this is a business trip and I'll be online every evening most likely, costing me around $12 a day.

With the adapter costing me $0 (with contract, no biggie - been with Sprint for how long now?) it seemed a good idea. Sure I'll have to deal with the $59 monthly fee long term but still, I think it was worth it. I refuse to pay for wireless in an airport and now, anywhere I go (assuming Sprint coverage) I'll be set. I almost got the PCMCIA card (or rather the ExpressCard with a PCMCIA slot adapter), but opted for the USB model because 1. It was free 2. I can take it to any PC.

Overall the speeds have been more than acceptable. I won't be hauling down the Domino 8.5 install image over it, but for general mail/web/small download it works great.

So if you're interested, it is the 598U from Sierra Wireless. We'll see how this works long term, but so far it is just what I needed.