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Keep in mind that Microsoft does not directly battle Apple, but does so through the OEMs such as HP, IBM/Lenovo, Dell, Gateway, etc. So while Apple may have a good marketing campaign as they do now against Vista, they still have to contend with HP, in other words they go up against a double edge sword. As good as Apple can do, they will always be limited in their decision to lock the OS onto their hardware only. At the end of the day it is hard for Apple to compete with HP workstations, desktops, etc.. that are hundreds of dollars less. When Apple had their "own" CPU it was one thing, but to now use Intel PCs makes it much more difficult for them to justify the cost differential.

As for this Linux vs. Vista debate. I just am so tired of these and find these childish and silly. But allow me to point out something that needs to be said. There is a whole industry from applications to gaming that support the Windows OS, and as such will not be particularly interested in seeing Windows lose market share. As much as people would love to see software written for multiple OSs, it just will not happen as this obviously gives rise to development and support cost. No need to drag out the economic dynamics of this as I am sure most of you understand these basic principles. The same can also be said of hardware MFRs. Supporting multiple OSs on a limited basis is one thing, but to give general support across all channels is another.

To put it in a basic sense, HP may offer a limited line of workstations with Suse, put the costs of offering Suse alongside Windows on all desktops, including consumer is just not economical for them. Most importantly HP is a Microsoft reseller, as such they would stand to lose revenue from the sale of the OS. Dell has done this on a limited basis, but did so in a way as to knowingly target an audience that would buy these computers simply because it had Linux. Therefore they were able to price these as not very competitive offerings, but this would not translate across the board.

One last topic that really gets heated: DRM. The one aspect that people just simply look over is that the entertainment industry are the ones behind DRM, not Microsoft or Apple. When you put out a consumer product such as XP or Vista, you have a choice to support DRM and allow HD playback, or not to support DRM and have no HD. The media industry would still continue with DRM regardless of whether an OS would support it, simply because set top boxes would. The market share of media PCs is still so small as to force any changes on this. So when Microsoft enabled DRM, while this gave excellent ammo to Microsoft haters, they did so knowing that the vast majority of their customers would have demanded this, or more specifically would have demanded the ability to play HD movies and content. Keep in mind please that the majority of consumers, say what you want about them, do little about DRM but would know that their HD movie is not playable on their new laptop.

The problem for Linux is that not supporting DRM limits the ability of the OS to be widely accepted. Unless DRM can be done away with completely, which it may very well be soon , everyone from consumers to the OEMs will not want to deal with Linux on a broad scale.

Ubuntu, more than any other distro has a good chance at building some user base, it is just that for years to come they will not be able to garner any decent market share simply because their are non-Microsoft forces that will equally be dead set against adopting this OS.