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Fair point. Switching gears then, how about:

Apple is a luxury brand and Microsoft isn't, so I think the current economic troubles will hit them harder.

Except that's not actually true. Apple has luxury products like the iPod, sure. The current generation iPhone has features that are very obviously aimed at competing with corporate stalwart RIM.

Apple (well, Jobs) doesn't focus on marketing to corporations as a strategy to be more appealing to consumers, but I'm certain if they had to they could. Do Sun have any desktop Unix customers left? They're Apple's obvious first target.

the iphone has outlook integration, yes. But the /brand/ is overall, a luxury consumer brand. People pay (or used to pay, depending on which sites you read) the "apple tax" to use OSX and etc.

Apple uses style and design as key selling points and differentiators. Hence, the upscale nature of the brand. Apple will never sell anything that resembles an eMachine.

That is true only in the sense that Nikon is a luxury consumer brand that people pay a premium for. I'd argue that Apple is a "creative professional" brand and leverages that to appeal to consumers too. If Nikon only made digicams, no matter how good they were, if they took their eye off the photojournalists, the consumers would lose interest.

Ok.. fair point :)

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