Randall Stross, a professor of business at San Jose State University wrote in the New York Times that Jobs' Mob had an opportunity to give Microsoft a really good kicking as it struggled to get anyone to use its Vista operating system.

He said that Apple should have been using the time to lure consumers away from VoleWare to Macs. But its marketing programme during this period was half-hearted and badly thought through with "I'm-a-Mac/I'm-a-PC" commercials which showed Mac users as arrogant smug gits, the sort of person you want to punch rather than emulate.

The Mac's worldwide market share is still a flaccid three percent as of June 2007 which is fairly terrible when Apple's biggest rival could not sell its flagship product.

Apple had only two per cent of the market until recently and that was as a result of the “halo effect” produced by the success of the iPod. In fact when compared with all the different flavours of Windows out there, the Mac's share of the market actually dropped.

Stross thinks that the way that Apple is organising itself, with no manager in charge of the Mac's future, could easily mean that the Apple PC is history.

Currently the chief operating officer, Timothy Cook, who also has the job of running the entire company.

If you wanno know a bit more then cruise yer mice wee timorous beastie 'ere

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