Rolling to the rescue: Michael Volchok, a 27-year-old free-lance consultant who can fix just about any problem related to Apple computers.

Mr. Volchok is one of a growing number of consultants who play saviors in the computer dramas that unfold in America’s offices every day. With increasingly complex software and hardware, mutating viruses and snarled communications networks, system conflicts and crashes have become regular occurrences. So Mr. Volchok and others have set up shop as on-call fixers for the many professionals who depend on computers but don’t have a clue about how to fix them. Working alone or for larger consulting companies, the troubleshooters’ hourly fees range from $30 to more than $200.

Mr. Volchok, who charges $125 an hour, works primarily for small and midsize businesses, and almost exclusively in Manhattan. That keeps him plenty busy. His answering machine stuffed with messages and his beeper constantly buzzing, Mr. Volchok bounds through Manhattan on his Rollerblades, visiting three or four clients a day. He routinely works 10-hour days and on weekends.

His specialty is Apple computers, which he has been tinkering with since high school. After earning a degree in international relations from the University of Chicago in 1991, Mr. Volchok managed day-to-day operations for a nonprofit Macintosh users’ group in New York City.

"People would constantly call asking for help and referrals," he recalls. Yearning to start his own business and figuring he could answer most questions, he began recommending himself to callers. Three years ago, he quit his job, bought the client list of a small consulting firm and set about building his own company.

Since then, Volchok Associates has grown from three to about 100 active clients, he says. Mr. Volchok has a staff of four full-time consultants, and the company, privately held by him, had more than $1 million in revenue last year.

At 6 foot 4 inches, with long black hair tied in a ponytail, scraggly beard, oversize parka and baggy jeans, Mr. Volchok looks like the quintessential techie. He acts the part, too, spending much of his free time surfing the Internet, gathering free software and playing computer games. He scans piles of computer trade magazines for fixes and ideas.

With just a half-hour until the video-game maker’s presentation, Mr. Volchok and the tardy hotel technician frantically switch cables and connect sockets. "Bingo," Mr. Volchok says as the screen at the front of the room lights up.

The next day, Mr. Volchok sits in the office of the president of the ad agency that designed the presentation. "I’ve been through four consultants in four years," says Michael Racz, founder of the ad agency, RDA International Inc., which chose Mr. Volchok to install and network $270,000 of computers in the past month. "Finding someone who you can trust and who shows up when you need him is next to impossible."

Mr. Volchok says he gives his clients blunt opinions on everything from choosing Internet providers to deciding which employees should get the most powerful computers. He’s also blunt about his clients, who sometimes make panicky calls for help fixing mistakes they could easily fix themselves. "I spend 10% to 20% of my time fixing really stupid stuff," he says.

Before he leaves the ad agency, a managing partner asks him to troubleshoot a client’s laptop computer and hook it to the Internet. Mr. Volchok spends the next 20 minutes on hold with the Internet provider, only to be asked to leave a message. "Boy is this stupid," he shouts into the phone.

When he finally gets through, he learns that the client got his password wrong. He plugs the computer into a phone line and punches in the correct password. It connects.

By the time he pushes the elevator button, he’s already 20 minutes late for his next appointment at Blender magazine, an interactive magazine. For $1,000 a month, he’s agreed to come two hours each week for routine tweaking and another five "emergency" hours when things get dire.

"Start right away with Zoe," says David Cherry, the company’s co-founder. "Her screen keeps freezing."

Mr. Volchok strides into the office of the art director, Zoe Chan. "What did you do now?" he inquires with a smile.

Ms. Chan shrugs her shoulders. "Everyday it’s something different," she complains. "It’s frozen three times today. Then I get this lame message: `Floating coprocessor not installed.’"

"Which programs is it freezing in?" he asks.

"All of them, I think," she says.

Mr. Volchok grabs the computer mouse and clicks through menus in rapid fire, searching for software conflicts and outdated versions—by far the most common problems he sees. Within a few minutes he’s narrowed it down to the antiquated software for a circuit board that captures video images.

He heads down the hallway in search of an Internet-connected computer. Dale Hrabi, who manages the company’s World Wide Web site, willingly steps aside. When his hard disk crashed just before a critical deadline last month, Mr. Volchok came to the rescue. "It was like waiting for a heart transplant," says a grateful Mr. Hrabi.

Mr. Volchok pulls up the "Macintouch Homepage," an electronic cheat sheet that offers fixes for assorted bugs and glitches. "Shhhh," he says under his breath. "No one’s supposed to know about this."

He finds the updated software he needs and downloads it. But before he can get back down the hall to install it, another worker tugs at his sleeve. "My computer doesn’t print," cries Jennifer Von Feldt. "And I’m the publisher!"

Mr. Volchok steps into her office and grabs her computer mouse. Her files are disorganized, and she’s got multiple versions of the same word-processing and spreadsheet programs. A few clicks and it’s ready to print again. "Now I never have to learn computers," Ms. Von Feldt says cheerfully. "I can just say, `Fix it.’"

"Yaaaaahoooo," the portly New Jersey computer reseller hollers, peering back at the S-shaped tracks he has just carved in the powder with his superwide skis. "Not bad for a desk-chained slouch," he says later, a wide grin filling his face.

Mr. Sommer's glee makes his friends cringe. "Fat skis are for fat people," mutters John Cooney, a trim, expert skier who must work twice as hard as Mr. Sommer to descend through the thick snowfield on his conventional skis.

Thanks to the invention of fat skis, thousands of ordinary skiers are discovering the joy of skiing on powder snow. Found predominantly in the West, where high altitudes and low humidity create dry, airy snowflakes, the coveted, fresh-fallen powder buries rocks and trees under a featherweight cushion. Powder is a frolic for experienced skiers but treacherous for those who lack the skill and stamina to maneuver through it.

While traditional skis submarine beneath the surface of deep powder, causing the uninitiated to lose control and fall face first, the double-width fat skis float on top of the deep, back-country snows. Just as the oversized tennis racket and the "Big Bertha" golf club revolutionized their sports, the beefy boards let even terminal intermediates schuss the rugged wilderness as easily as if they were skiing a machine-packed resort slope.

But the skis are infuriating long-time powderhounds who now find the chubby hoi polloi invading their cherished snowfields. After devoting years to mastering and chasing the precious powder, traditionalists say the very notion of "easy" powder skiing tears at their souls. Claiming powder skiing as a right that must be earned, they denounce the skis as "training wheels," and their narcissistic proponents as "cheaters."

"They're the death of resort powder skiing," says Andrew Slough, a Sun Valley, Idaho, local and an ardent Luddite when it comes to breakthrough ski technology. "Today was one of only a handful of big powder days we've had this year, but the mountain was tracked by 10 a.m.!" he complains. "Before fat skis, intermediates would say, `Let me out of here!' Now my favorite runs are full of greasy-haired executives and rich old women with big wieners on their feet."

And talk about manners. Fat skiers haphazardly zigzag across the hills, destroying the untracked snow that powderhounds crave and ruining the tight, symmetrical S-turns they leave as their signatures. When Tom Winter recently saw an older woman meandering across his path in Vail, Colorado's famed Back Bowls, he began screaming at her. "It was totally pathetic," says Mr. Winter, a local ski-shop technician. "People on fat skis totally miss the point. Powder skiing is an art form. But instead of a brush, they're using a paint roller."

The genesis of fat skis doesn't enhance their image. For decades, most ski-design innovations have trickled down from racers, yielding skis with increased precision and control at high speeds. By comparison, fat skis were developed from snowboards (snow-going skateboards that traditional skiers despise) for a single purpose: fun. After observing snowboarders' ability to float on powder, Austrian ski designer Rupert Huber cut a snowboard down the middle and mounted bindings on each half.

The first such fat skis to be sold were superwide and lacked the subtle hourglass shape that allows conventional skis to carve turns on packed snow. While perfect for powder, the fatties were dangerously unstable on groomed trails. Manufacturers have since refined the shape, with impressive results. Several hybrid models sold out this year, and retailers attending this week's Ski Industries of America trade show in Las Vegas are expected to stock up.

Because they require far less effort to maneuver in powder and other challenging snow conditions, fat skis can add years to a skier's career -- good news for an anemic industry struggling to keep an aging skier population on the slopes. Some ski schools now teach beginners on the skis because they are so stable. Since the fat skis are as useful in gloppy, end-of-season snow as in midwinter powder, they also can add precious days to the ski season.

But most important, fat boards allow occasional skiers to experience the ecstasy of powder skiing, a sure way to turn enthusiasts into zealots. As Mr. Winter puts it, "Powder skiing is like sinking a 40-foot putt to win the U.S. Open again and again, all day long." Indeed, some less-than-expert skiers feel so elated on fat skis that they will brave the powder in back-country areas only accessible by helicopter or on cross-country skis. Heli-skiing operators say they have seen a 50% increase in patronage since 1990, thanks largely to fat skis.

Critics worry that fat-ski euphoria may make fledglings dangerously overconfident. "You feel like you can take more risks," admits novelist Amy Tan, who says she broke a leg last winter "because I had gotten so cocky on my fat skis."

Just the same, the 43-year-old author of "The Joy Luck Club" describes the skis as "better than a face lift." At Squaw Valley, Calif., she says, "I ran into a group of young Silicon Valley types -- the kind who still think they have disposable body parts. We got to an experts-only run, and I said, `Let's go down this.'" While Ms. Tan easily descended the slope and waited at the bottom, she says, "They were falling every third turn. One guy looked like he'd been splattered with a thousand cream pies."

Still, scornful traditionalists liken fat skis to mopeds; fun to ride, but an embarrassment to be seen on. Besides, because fat skiers ride on top of the snow, they can't indulge in the ultimate powder sensation: the face shot. Narrow boards dive under the surface, churning it up and engulfing the skier from head to toe in an exploding cloud of fluffy powder.

"On conventional skis, you're part of the mountain, you're not just riding on top of it," says Greg Lewis, a sports commentator for CBS and an Aspen resident. "On fat skis, you don't get the same sense of intimacy with the snow."

For the stout Mr. Sommer, however, such criticism falls on deaf ears. "I was graceful, and I was gliding, and I was floating, and I was yaahoooing," he says after devouring 15,000 vertical feet without a sigh. "But my friends were, like, `Uggghhh! Uggghhh!' lifting heavily and dropping into the snow on every turn."

"I was definitely working harder than Joe," admits Matthew Crane, a Breckenridge, Colo., ski patroller who toughed it out with his regular skis. "At one point, I felt like I was in labor. But instead of a baby, I gave birth to a hernia."

Their friend Mr. Cooney remains unconvinced. "I worked hard, but I figure I got better turns in," he counters as he eyeballs the gloating Mr. Sommer. "I could maneuver into stuff the fat skiers couldn't get their fat tails into."

"Like that gully you got stuck in?" Mr. Sommer snaps.

(See related letter: "Letters to the Editor: Lookin' Good On Fat Skis" -- WSJ March 29, 1995)

This bit of advice, from one computer shopper to another not long ago, portends more trouble for the already-battered Apple Computer Inc.

The shopper who dispensed the advice is Jeffrey Bade, a computer specialist at Dow Chemical Co., Midland, Mich., and, more to the point, a decade-long devotee of Apple’s Macintosh computer. Mr. Bade bought his first Mac while in college in 1984, subsequently became a Mac programmer and sang the machine’s praises far and wide. "I was a real evangelist," he says.

But when Dow Chemical pulled the plugs on its nearly 9,000 Macs last spring, Mr. Bade gave in, explaining: "It’s just not worth fighting for anymore."

Frustrated with a product that is no longer state-of-the-art, onetime Macintosh zealots like Mr. Bade are losing their religion. And as their employers seek to cut costs by limiting the computer systems they support, many of these devotees have stopped defending the computers they once persuaded their companies to buy.

The result: Corporate users are dumping the Mac in droves. In March, Northern Telecom Ltd. said it would replace 30,000 Macs with "Wintel" machines, computers equipped with Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system and Intel Corp. microprocessors. Eli Lilly & Co. is weeding out 7,000 Macs. Ernst & Young will purge about 2,000 Macs by the fall, and Monsanto Co. will drop that many within a year. Numerous others, including big users like Pacific Telesis Group and KPMG Peat Marwick, are now reviewing their buying plans.

It is an ironic turn of events for Apple, which used to brag about how Macintosh became popular in corporate offices only after fans sneaked the computers through the back door. Although business sales account for only about a third of Apple’s revenue—and thus are less important to the company than to rivals like Compaq Computer Corp.—Apple’s unit-based market share among large and medium-size U.S. businesses has fallen by about 50% since the third quarter of 1995, International Data Corp. reports. "We are obviously not happy" about corporate defections, admits Steven Angelo, a vice president for strategic marketing at Apple, which is based in Cupertino, Calif.

But Mr. Angelo says that the Macintosh still has fervent corporate fans, especially among those who use it for graphics applications. Indeed, when Northern Telecom first announced its switch to Windows, "some people had a Big Mac Attack," says Bill Conner, an executive vice president who oversees computer networking there. Nevertheless, the Macs are going.

Mac fans at Lilly also complained. "But we said, `Hey, you can’t blame us for delays in their systems or the fact that if you walk into any computer store most of the software is for Windows, or for [Apple’s] falling market share or their debt being downgraded," says Edward B. Tunstall, Lilly’s chief information officer. "That shut people up pretty fast."

The Mac’s famously easy-to-operate system has long been a major selling point with corporate buyers, who consider the costs of training and supporting users. But with both Windows 95 and its more powerful cousin, Windows NT, employing a Mac-like screen format, Apple has lost much of its user-friendly edge.

"Once NT came out [with the Windows 95 user interface], that was it," says Seth Gersch, chief administrative officer at Montgomery Securities Inc. in San Francisco, which recently dumped 1,100 Apple computers. An Apple enthusiast from the beginning, Mr. Gersch once persuaded his company to use Macs for its brokerage applications, arguing to his bosses that the Mac was like a Ferrari while International Business Machines Corp.’s PC was a Ford Model-T. "Now, it’s the reverse," he says.

Corporate users say the Macintosh crashes more often than Windows NT. Even worse, while programs for Wintel machines proliferate, software for the Macintosh has become less plentiful. Darren Starr, a computer consultant and self-proclaimed Mac fanatic who was among the first to install Apple computer networks in Silicon Valley businesses, says his eroding enchantment with the Mac ended altogether last month when the manufacturer of a key computer program for the Mac told him it would no longer sell or support the product. "I used to say that it didn’t matter if there were more programs available for Windows machines, as long as there was at least one of what I needed running on the Mac," he says. "But now there isn’t even that."

At Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the venture-capital firm that financed Netscape Communications Corp., a conversion from Apple to Windows systems will be finished by next spring. Kleiner partner Kevin Compton, who spent years advising businesses to use the Mac, knew the tide had turned when he recently asked his children what computers they wanted in their bedrooms. "They said they wanted the same ones they had at school. So I asked them, `Which Mac is that?’" Mr. Compton recalls. "They said, `No, Dad, we use Windows.’"

It doesn’t help Apple salesmen knocking on corporate doors that other high-profile Mac users are throwing in the towel. Stewart Alsop, a longtime Mac booster and widely published computer columnist, wrote his first story on a Windows computer in July. In giving up the Mac, he wrote in InfoWorld magazine, "the plain truth is that I am . . . giving up what amounts to very little."

Even Mike Boich has called it quits. In 1985, as Apple’s original "evangelist," Mr. Boich set out to pique the interest of software developers. Now, "I’m sitting here typing on my Thinkpad," an IBM laptop, he says. "If I want the coolest applications the day they’re released, or if I go surfing the Internet to download software, invariably it’s Windows stuff that’s available."

Today, Mr. Boich is president and chief executive officer of Rendition Inc., Mountain View, Calif., which makes graphics chips for Intel-based computers. An evangelist-turned-pragmatist, he and his new company have declined to make comparable chips for Apple machines. As for his former disciples in corporations, he says, "I would imagine it’s not a good career move to buy more Macs."

Links to Internet postings regarding this story:
Evangelist: Dr. Mac Fights Back
Here Comes PPCP To Save The Day