We all know that Obama uses a Mac (although he won’t let go of his BlackBerry), and his entire tech savvy campaign used modern technology and internet. Imagine their surprise when they found the White House to be living back in the stone ages!
What does that mean in 21st-century terms? No Facebook to communicate with supporters. No outside e-mail log-ins. No instant messaging. Hard adjustments for a staff that helped sweep Obama to power through, among other things, relentless online social networking.
The team members, accustomed to working on Macintoshes, found computers outfitted with six-year-old versions of Microsoft software. Laptops were scarce, assigned to only a few people in the West Wing. The team was left struggling to put closed captions on online videos.
The one positive comment that Microsoft can get from this bad press, “It is kind of like going from an Xbox to an Atari,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said of his new digs.
[Full article Washington Post]
