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While I personally like the commercials and apple too - I get his point.

The commercials sell the idea that Apples are diverse, flexible, "cool" computers you can use for everything you want. Meanwhile, PCs are only for corporate slaves. And that, frankly, is a lie.

If it weren't a lie then Apple wouldn't need Bootcamp to try and wedge its foot into the door of the PC market.

The fact of the matter is, if you are an intense "gamer", an academic or student, or work for just about any large corporation...you need a PC.

When I was looking to buy a laptop I would have liked an apple - Yet found that short of using strictly for personal entertainment or forgoing grad school for art school - I couldn't do much else with it.

I couldn't use it for law school, grad school, my undergrad work..nor for my work...or any of the places I hope to work..That's hardly convenient flexible, or diverse.

Maybe now with bootcamp I can do these things. But there in lies the finer point. In order to live up to it's self imposed image...it has to become more like the PC it depicts as a "dullard". I find that ironic.

There are two options for accessing Windows on a Mac. The first being directly in OSX with Parrallels which lets you open Windows Apps in OSX, and the second is with bootcamp. The reality is that a Mac is now both, a PC and a Mac, and there isn't anything you can do with it that you can't do on a PC. Though I agree the image that embodies the PC on those commercials is not representative of ALL PC users, I still believe Bill missed the point.

People are tired of their computers crashing, tired of spyware, adware, and how slow the programs that prevent these things make their PC. They are tired of playing games with drivers to get peripherals to work. There are ways around those things, Microsoft chooses not to utilize them. Of course, Microsoft isn't capable of providing the kind of hand and glove performance that Apple does between it's Computers and it's OS because Microsoft doesn't make the computers.

With 2 days out the door, Windows Vista had already been slammed with a major security flaw, and disabled audio effects for millions of gamers. Mircorosft is already rallying the first major update. That really doesn't sell their "security first" approach to Vista.

The reality is that each platform has it's benefits and drawbacks, but there is only one brand that allows you the ability to choose which platform you want to use everytime you start up your computer, be that Unix, Linux, Windows, or Mac OS, and that's Apple. So whichever OS you rally behind, you can run it on an Apple, making it more compatible and flexible than any other computer brand on the market. That's the theory behind BootCamp, not just to appeal to Windows users.

Don't get me wrong. I think Apples are great. But I don't buy for a second that Jobs woke up one day and said "gee, wouldn't it be nice if people could run whatever OS they wanted".

I think he woke up one day and realised there was no hope of apple convicing corporations who had spent billions on PC systems to convert. And likewise, that educational institutions had realised that it didn't make sense to train students on machines they wouldn't use in their professional lives.

The only way to be competitive was to adapt and find a way to give consumers the option to run the programs that dominate the market on an Apple.

And I think that is what Gates's was getting at in some sense. Apple claims superiority, depicts PC as an inflexible dullard, but has to stand on the shoulders of others in order to acheive that image and in order to access the market of people they now claim to represent exclusively.

I think it is great they are offering this, but the ads are ironic under the circumstances. Gates dodges tough questions, and Apple tries to spin business necessity as "innovation".

I think it's interesting that the PC market is about the only place where people gauge luxury by market share. It makes no sense. When you think about it, very few people drive a Mercedes, or BMW, but everybody knows that they are a superior car. They can do everything the other cars can do, but they also have finer, more luxurious touches that other automobiles just don't.

You still get people who would die before they'd ever buy a BMW or Mercedes because they aren't made in the US, or they are Nascar fans and they are brand loyal to say Chevy. The point is, that a better concept, a better design, more reliability, and a higher quality make a superior automobile. They also make a superior computer.

If Apple utilizes every OS in the known existence to make their device the most compatible... and the only holdout is that they did it to convert more people? sell to more people? That's not abandoning their own strengths, they still have an OS due out shortly, it's just a good business model.

Microsoft is a software company. They don't build PCs, they can't guarantee the quality of the PC that runs their software. Apple can guarantee the quality of their software and hardware end to end because they heavily regulate their OS and what can and can't run on it.

To say an Apple isn't superior based on OS is ridiculous especially because it can run the same OS. Therefore it has everything other computers have and more. It's pretty much a brand loyalty matter when you get to the point of saying a computer that is equally as capable with a more attractive design and a whole other slew of features in addition is "not superior."

Of course the PC crowd really doesn't understand an Apple because most of them don't use Apples at all, if they ever have. Windows Vista is the same OS, be it on a PC or a Mac. The only difference is that with a Mac you also get OSX, all of it's features, and a direct line option for Unix with all Unix's capabilities.

If you so feel, you can partition away and run Linux too, just like with a PC.

They are in a unique position, and as much as Bill Gates would like to argue that Windows is superior because many people use it, he's completely ignoring the fact that millions of Mac users are also using it... on a Mac, in addition to OSX.