Apple vs. PC Battle Rages On Several Fronts

The Intel chip that powers the MacBook Air will soon be available on Windows notebooks, while Apple launhces a new site to help folks switch from PCs.According to Antone Gonsalves at InformationWeek, "Intel has reportedly sold a version of the miniaturized Core 2 Duo processor in Apple's recently released MacBook Air to other manufactures, which could then build Windows-based competitors."

There's more the Air than the chip, of course, but it's conceivable that a PC manufacturer could come up with a machine with a similarly sleek form factor and a more palatable (or at least different) selection of compromises, perhaps at a lower price. That might convince PC users that they don't need to switch to the Mac, or even entice some Mac-heads to the PC side of things.

Of course, a new Gartner report predicts that even as notebooks shrink, users will abandon them for even smaller mobile handhelds like the iPhone. Meanwhile, the company also expects that iPhone integration will help Apple double its computer market share in the US and Western Europe.

Apple no doubt likes that idea, and it's doing what it can to help the transition with Find Out How: a new site that uses video to explain how to move data from a PC to a Mac, among other things.

So who's buying all these Macs? Mitch Wagner at InformationWeek quotes an Advertising Age article on a Mindset Media survey answering thusly: Smug Control Freaks, just like the Mac guy in the company's TV commercials. But hey, they're also open minded and creative...