imac_narrowweb__300x4422I’VE POSTED before about my love of all things Apple.

Now it looks like other parliamentarians who share my enthusiasm might be about to make a breakthrough in persuading the parliamentary authorities to relax their grip on all things Windows and start to consider the alternatives.

The estimable Derek Wyatt MP, a fellow Mac-lover, has organised a meeting next month when we will have the opportunity to put our case to the Parliamentary Information and Communications Directorate (PICT). Apparently, at least one MP already has a deal whereby he has kitted out his office with Apple Macs and can use them to access all his parliamentary email and the intranet, something Derek and I understood not to be possible (or at least not acceptable to those in charge).

If we’re successful in making our case, it could have major ramifications: I know of a number of colleagues (including at least one minister) who have already invested in Macs and were resigned to not having the technical support and access to some information that comes as standard with the inferior standard-issue House of Commons PCs. There are plenty of others who would jump ship if it were made easier for them and their staff to do so.

I certainly would prefer to shift the whole of Team Harris onto Macs, despite the superficial objection of one memer of staff who compared choosing a Mac over a PC to driving an automatic rather than a manual. Not a bad analogy, actually (I do, as it happens, drive an automatic).

But if the meeting goes as we hope, he will have to get used to having an iMac in front of him in the future.