Thank you for a well presented statement of Apple's marketing. I, too, have resisted the clarion calls for Apple to lower its prices, produce a netbook, sell Mac OSX for PC's, use its billions in the bank to buy Adobe, Dell, etc.

I've shied away from these popular positions for a number of reasons. Apple should do the following, but this is mostly what it is already doing.

1. Don't fix what ain't broke. Don't change the price structure. Apple is still making money when the PC market is flat or down, so why make changes?

2. Don't introduce crippled products. The Netbooks only had the advantage of being cheap, but Apple doesn't engage in the low end markets. It innovates and creates new markets.

Besides damaging Apple's reputation for quality, A Netbook doesn't seem to be where Apple is proceeding. Why go there when there isn't even any money in it?

3. Hang onto the Cash. Don't buy up losing companies. Build your own designs rather than accept inferior software. But, use the recession to hire away great people.

The world economy is very uncertain, It seems likely that a stagnant economy will continue even though high price inflation is coming. Cash is king in uncertain times.

4. Don't sell the family jewels. Don't sell Mac OSX for PC's. Apple should do what it can to discourage clones and Hackintoshes. Perhaps, it can use the 64 bit security in Snow Leopard to freeze out illegitimate hardware.

5. Keep to your path for the future. As I look backwards, I can see how Apple has been incrementally placing bets that moved it toward the present. It took Apple 8 years to get Quicktime developed well enough so it could be useful, impressive and then, vastly superior to the competition. Most of this time, Microsoft laughed at it.

Apple needs to keep pushing the technical envelope, because this is Microsoft's Achilles heel. Microsoft Windows is not a modern, real operating system. It would take Microsoft seven to ten years to get from Windows 7 to a real operating system like Unix. Meanwhile, Apple doesn't have to reinvent the wheel, so it can produce changes, every 12 to 18 months, which Microsoft cannot keep up with. Apple must out innovate Microsoft.

Other bets are being placed now with Snow leopard; This upgrade is more than a bug fix. The 64 bit Operating System will be big, but in ways we don't yet understand. As will be ZFS, OpenCL, Grand Central, introducing the NVEDIA 9400 GPU through out its line up. These are all designed to grow into a computer which runs the Mac OS much faster and better than Windows on the same machine.

It looks as though Apple will be aiming to take a chunk of the gaming market, but it won't copy Wintel's way of doing that. Snow Leopard with 64 bit Applications should be fast. Applications through the Ap store should be cheap. This should turn Microsoft's business plan on its ear.

6. Take advantage of every hardware improvement. Perhaps, the reason that Apple hasn't developed a system using the Atom computer-on-a-chip is that Apple has its own implementation coming.

7. Create an ecosystem for a distributed computer. Prices for computer parts keep falling as processor cores multiply. The computer-on-a-chip will find it way inside every peripheral in a few years. This will change how these parts wireless work together.

The computer will stop being a single box and become six to eight specialized computers which do the same job, but do it better, faster and cheaper. And a whole lot more conveniently. But, it needs an OS which can make it all work together.

8. Take advantage of the fact that embedded Linux devises will take over routine functions such as cash Registers, Displays and front end devises for mainframe computers. Expect that there will be cheap wireless security cameras, temperature and weather gauges, lighting controls and computers placed in household equipment to report to a central location. Apple should excel in being the interface between these devises and the user.

Apple has, for the last ten years, been removing every flaw or inadequacy from its system. Apple is on the fastest hardware. It has the most secure OS. It has the sexy hardware. It has the most efficient supply chain in the market.

Apple has captured the high end of the consumer market when the rest of the computer market is stagnant -- a replacement market.

The last barrier is price, but I don't ever expect Apple to be cheap. Its current ads are fine in pointing out Windows inadequacies. But, Apple needs to sell solutions -- a better lifestyle. Apple needs to point out that better computing is worth paying more for. So, Apple need to get much better than Microsoft.