Sure, different eras require different strategies. That's what makes this argument so funny: It's hopelessly mired in a bygone era. They're debating the best mo

Sure, different eras require different strategies. That's what makes this argument so funny: It's hopelessly mired in a bygone era. They're debating the best move in a game that Apple stopped playing two or three games ago. Apple doesn't care much about desktop marketshare. That game is old. They care about desktop hardware profits, which are doing nicely -- they've got one of the most profitable segments of that market sewn up, and it's a nice cash cow. And they care about control, the control that enables them to coordinate their hardware and software better than anyone else in the industry, and to ensure that any new thing they bring out (like the iPhone) fits seamlessly into at least one major operating system in its first month of release. But the focus has long since moved off the desktop OS. First it moved to the music hardware and content business, but by now even that has arguably become a cash cow -- Apple owns the most profitable slice of the music hardware market, and is one of two or three major content players, and they're running out of music industry to dominate. Growth is slowing. So, having sewn that up, they're on to game #3: the mobile hardware industry, with side plays in the "Web OS" business (Safari and iTunes run on Windows -- that's just about the only "Apple on PC hardware" play that the company cares about) and some latent TV and movie stuff that is seemingly waiting for a chance to break out. These days Apple thinks about Google and Nokia and RIM and Amazon and the cable companies. Microsoft is not much of a player in the games that Apple plays today. Let them keep their big fat Windows marketshare. It's not making them any more nimble.