Instead of two nerds making passive-aggressive beta-male comments to each other in the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" commercials; imagine replacing the nerd with a Brett Farve type of guy. Not only is he an alpha male, but he's intelligent enough to be successful.

Said guy's too busy listening to his iPod ;-)

Seriously, tho', Apple has simply chosen not to compete in many of the markets MS sells into. There's no Mac for gamers, for example, Apple simply aren't interested. They aren't interested in selling into corporate desktops either. There's no technical reason Apple couldn't flog 20,000 desktops to Boeing to use as Unix workstations, for example.

That's the secret, really. You don't have to be tech savvy or elite to use a Mac. You just have to be in a sector that Apple is interested in. A non-technical entry-level graphic designer is going to be using a Mac 'cos it's the right tool for the job, as is a hardcore geek who wants a decent Unix laptop.

It's not like BMW's engineers couldn't master the technology of the solid rear axle.

Apple is for betas, plain and simple. MS is missing an opportunity to reach the alphas.

I think the author meant to say on Microsoft.

And since people clearly understand what he means, there is no reason for him to change what he says or writes, because by definition he is using language correctly: he is communicating.

No wonder newer generations who missed the transition from minis and mainframes to personal computers find it very confusing.

Your honour, I present exhibit 1:

http://codytaylor.org/images/apple/apple-computers-personal-...

There is a big difference between 'fails with the HN/Slashdot crowd' and fails to make money.

Probably true, but it may be closer than you think. According to Yahoo, AAPL had $4.8 billion in profit. According to MSFT's annual report, Windows profit was $10 billion. Some of that is XP sales, so lets say $8 billion for Vista. It took Microsoft 5 years to make Vista, and Apple easily cranks out new versions on gorgeous hardware and makes 50% of Vista's profit. Plus, the Windows sales derivative is flat to negative, while Apple's is steeply positive. Microsoft may be making tons of money, but from a business perspective, Apple is a better business.

MS also has a lot of income from licenses/service/support it would still make money for years if it fired all it's devs tomorrow.

The point was that hype aside, an MS 'flop' still makes more money than you can imagine.

Of course, Apple has really always been at odds with the PC industry, so making a play around the 7 release date comes as no surprise given that Vista tanked.

Maybe if it is Microsoft vs Apple they are talking, but MS also sells stuff for netbooks.

Also, if there were no netbooks and no PCs, there probably would be more Apple sales. So Apple loses sales to PCs and therefore also to netbooks.

Whereas if you are GM you build 10 different cars with different badges from different parts that all compete with each other in the same market.

    [Netbooks] are cannibalizing Windows PC sales at an alarming
    rate. By comparison, laptops commanded higher margins and
    average selling prices when their popularity started to
    increase. PC manufacturers -- and even Microsoft -- benefited
    from notebooks' reversing the trend of falling computer ASPs;
    for a time. By comparison, netbooks are a plague, because
    they dramatically lower ASPs and margins and pull away sales
    from real laptops.

Moreover, I am not sure about that distinction. What exactly is the difference between netbook and co called "real laptop"? Missing DVD drive? Is there any principal difference?

As I see it, what happened was that Asus was able to create cheap small size laptop, and many people realized that this thing is really useful.

Given that most netbooks now run XP, (and shortly should be shipping with Windows 7 given the focus on performance) how can they be "cannibalizing Windows PC sales". The whole quote makes no sense, unless the low margins on netbooks are being passed on to Microsoft.

edit: despite the title the actual premise of the article is that Apple are declaring war on Windows 7. Given that netbooks will shortly be running Windows 7, how are they a disadvantage for Microsoft - in reality, mass produced, low-margin cheap netbooks must surely be a huge worry for a high margin retailer like Apple.

Then everybody switched to netbooks which have a smaller margin than the bag you take it home in.

The usefulness of a 'too big for your pocket, half a laptop that you have to hold' device are minimal. Maybe they'll surprise everyone and come out with a tablet, but I really doubt it.

If it is true - the noises that do kind of make sense - like Apple being in talks with publishers make me wonder if they are going to compete with the Kindle rather than the netbook.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/12/rumor-large-for/

So it wouldn't surprise me one bit if they delayed that for a couple of days just to be able to steal microsofts thunder.

The general reception of the latest batch of 'mac stuff' was pretty underwhelmed, if they top it off with a tablet then that will turn around to endless press coverage.

Competition is good.