General: Conan! What is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.
--Conan the Barbarian, 1982
A key reason for Apple's success has been that it has been more concerned with the customer experience than in trying to jostle for competitive position per se. Nonetheless, it has been striking to see how many of Apple's strongest PC competitors from its dark days have been struggling so mightily as of late. The Compaq and Gateway brands are all but gone after being swallowed up years ago by HP and Acer. Dell, with which Apple has had a particularly nasty history, has left the public market. And Microsoft is reeling from dwindling
