Actually MSFT's survival a couple of years back was directly tied to Apples survival. MSFT actually pumped money into Apple.

Why?

Remember when the fed was climbing up MSFT's A55 over their business practices?

One major point was the claim that IE was an integral part of Windows.

MSFT were not allowing PC manufacturers to ship their boxes with Windows installed if the manufacturer was going to preload a competitve browser, primarily Netscape.

The fed saw this as unfair business practices and were claiming that MSFT had become a monopoly. MSFT's only valid counter point was the Apple operating system.

So if Apple goes bye-bye MSFT has a nearly 100% share of the OS business and the fed would have stepped in and forced MSFT to break into seperate companies to create competition in the industry.

That's the last thing MSFT wanted.

As Linux gets a bigger foothold it'll give MSFT some breathing room but for now and the foreseeable future MSFT's survival in it's current state depends heavily on Apple remaining viable.

Make no mistake that Apple has learned a thing or two from MSFT.

They are accutely aware that it is a major objective for them to create and publish apps that are as uniqely their own as IE and Office are to MSFT.

Apple understand that they need more than a slick box and OS. In order to break into the larger Windows market they need products that the general consumer finds usefull.

Why should the elegence and human interface doctrine employed for the Mac be limited to the Mac?

iTunes is not the first Mac app to make it's way to Windows, BUT it is the first Apple branded app. That's the key diff.

More Apple branded apps will migrate to Windows, this will help to brand Apple with the newer generation of computer users who have not yet succumbed to the old "PC vs Mac" ideology.

It's a long term tactic which will take some time to play out but it will work.

Remember the early days of the internet? The geeks frowned upon AOL users and admonished them at every turn. If you were already using the web you dared not venture into AOL land.

But the newbies did'nt know any better and happily signed on with AOL because it was easy point and click. We all know how that turned out.

End of the day it's tough to get people to change, takes a lot of resources to make a dent. But if you can get to them before they have a chance to become jaded you've got a home run.

Ask your father or grandfather what his generation thought about Japanese cars.