This has been said many times before, but obviously not often enough: Market share is only one way to play the game. Other goals are things like "profit" and "shareholder value."

There is a little German car maker you might have heard of named Prosche. They make sehr viel money. Their stock is doing sehr gut. They don't really care about market share. Now, nobody bothers them about this or writes little essays about how Porsche will never catch up with Toyota or GM, because everybody understands they are playing for profit, not market share. For some reason, many people don't understand this with Apple. They keep talking about market share.

Apple has no debt. They are making lots of money -- okay, so is Microsoft. Their stock is up, what, 70 per cent this year -- Microsoft's has been dead in the water for years. Apple has two different product lines that are doing fine: Computers and iPods. They are working on a third, the iPhone. Microsoft has two products of the same type, Windows and Office, that make money. Everything else they have touched, like the Zune and the Xbox, has been a financial disaster.

Let Microsoft keep its market share. Apple is making money and making its shareholders happy. Like Porsche.

Well, I guess I'm a typical Mac user. I have a shiny new iMac and absolutely no idea how many giga-somethings-or-other are in there. I've always felt that comparing computer speeds is like comparing penis sizes. Winning the contest doesn't necessarily mean you get the girl you want. In short: Speed is not why I bought a Mac. It's a nice, friendly computer that does everything I want it to do without driving me nuts as Windows used to. What do I care if some other OS is a tad bit faster?