I'm not sure I totally agree. I think developers are being pushed to non Microsoft platforms by Microsoft's arrogance and anti-customer features like Product Activation and Passport stuff (or the perception that Passport is needed by .NET apps) and they are being drawn to Apple because OS X is simply a good OS. Yes, good developer tools certainly important in the overall mix, and it's good to hear that Apple's focusing on developer tools again.

But, definitely over the past two years developer friction has gone down on the Apple platform and has gone up on the Microsoft platform.

Even if I stay on Windows, I really am enthused by seeing Apple do well. Microsoft needs good competition and seems to do its best work when there is market competition. I just wish Microsoft would compete wholly on product quality and stop trying to play games to "suck the airsupply out" of its competitors' engines.

David: be careful what you wish for. If you have a clone market, Apple will have to build device drivers for a variety of machines, just like Microsoft has to. This alone will cost Apple a lot of effort and time (slowing down Apple's ability to innovate and distracting them).

I used to be an advocate for Apple to open up the market, but I don't see how they can do that. Apple's culture just doesn't allow for this, especially now that Jobs is in control again.

Anyway, I have a pretty close to state of the art IBM ThinkPad. Is it any better than a Titanium? I can't see any hardware advantage to my IBM.