Introducing Words and Wires

For me, it started with an Apple II back in 1982, when I was working as a radiochemist at the Liège University Cyclotron. Then I bought my first Macintosh, a soapbar-shaped Mac Plus in 1986. It was so much further advanced than Microsoft DOS, I couldn't understand why people didn't switch to Mac. In the first half of the 90s, I built and operated the IT network of a small savings bank with Mac workstations and Unix servers.

Then Windows 95 came out, and the advantages of the Apple Mac platform were far less clear-cut than before. Microsoft grew to dominate the enterprise and the home market. Apple was relegated to a niche of graphics designers and publishing.

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1996, he brought more than his brilliance: he brought a Unix-based operating system called NeXTstep, which would grow to become Mac OS X. On 13 September 2000, I was waiting in front of an Apple dealer in Brussels at midnight for the first Public Beta release of Mac OS X.

Mac OS X is key to Apple's current success. Finally a company found a way to release the power of Unix to the general public. All the years I'd spent administrating Unix server systems could now be used to empower individual clients. Any Apple machine, a Mac desktop workstation or MacBook, hides under a well-designed user interface all the power of Unix. And I'm a greybeard Unix geek.

So, with the fusion of Unix and Apple skills and experience, and as an Apple Store for Business affiliate, Words and Wires offers Apple equipment, consulting and support for all Apple devices along with fully compatible private servers to run your critical email and file sharing services with full privacy on your office server or on a private server in the cloud.

You get the Apple equipment, but not even Apple gets access to your private data.

John Seifarth
Founder and Technologist
Words and Wires sprl
October 2013