...With regard to design, I should add that some PC manufacturers have made their machines enormously pretty as well. But the smart ones don't copy Apple designs but go for their own unique look (e.g. Sony). I read some article recently about interviews with various companies trying to make "iPod killers" (http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/95/fast-talk.html); most of them said things that were ridiculous boilerplate, but a designer for Rio actually said something interesting, that in their industrial design they were trying to counterprogram: "Where Apple was the ivory tower, we were going to be the dark rebel. Where Apple was geometric, we were going to be smooth and curvy."