Oh, Guy, how could you? Folks, forget about Apple's anemic stock performance, its first quarterly loss in years, its flagging sales numbers, and box office flops like the Cube; if you want real proof that these are dark days indeed for the Mac platform, you need look no further than the defection of the former champion of the Macintosh Way, once-Apple Evangelist Guy Kawasaki. The young'uns out there may not remember the scary stretch of the mid-'90s when Apple was very much in danger of being snuffed out like a six-color candle by the smothering onslaught of Wintel beigeness, but we're here to tell you that it was Guy who defended Apple at every turn-- backed up by the tens of thousands of Mac loyalists subscribed to the EvangeList, who were ready to flame an anti-Mac journalist to a crisp at the drop of a hat.

Apple eliminated the Head Evangelist position (as well as the official Apple-run EvangeList mailing list) a few years back when light appeared at the end of the long, dark tunnel, and Guy left to head up Garage.com, though he still spoke well of Apple and the Macintosh in his many public appearances. But the man who once bled six colors is now apparently flogging gear for IBM instead; according to a Macworld article, Mr. Kawasaki recently appeared at IBM's PartnerWorld 2001 convention, a "pep rally for 4,000 IBM loyalists." Granted, consorting with Big Blue isn't the sin that it once was (in the pre-PowerPC days, for example, and before Microsoft assumed the mantle of "Public Mac Enemy #1"), but it gets worse: at that event, he revealed that his PowerPoint presentation was being run not on a PowerBook, but rather on an IBM ThinkPad. Blasphemy!

"This is a historic moment... if Steve Jobs could only see me now," remarked Guy; if only, indeed. We wouldn't be surprised if Steve's phoning in the order for the hit even now. Okay, granted, Steve himself didn't use Apple's own hardware for years after returning to Apple, preferring an x86 laptop running NeXTSTEP, but somehow we find Guy's reversal far more disturbing. Maybe it's because Steve never really personified the concept of fierce Macintosh loyalty the way that Guy did. Maybe it's because when our Duo 230 was stolen from a Los Angeles hospital in our pre-AtAT days, Guy was actually nice enough to offer to let us secretly abuse his own personal employee discount to replace it. (We didn't take him up on it, but it was so cool that he offered.) For whatever reason, though, Guy opting for a ThinkPad instead of one of the first PowerBook G4s off the line is like a dagger through our hearts. Oh, the betrayal!