Dave Winer is enjoying some of the frustrations of his new mac and writes:

I wonder why Microsoft doesn’t respond to Apple’s ads. Apple is just regurgitating the (mistaken) conventional wisdom. They’re kind of doing Microsoft a favor, because they’re marketing against where Windows was ten years ago. (And actually Windows NT had already solved many of the problems they’re talking about.) A Microsoft ad with a spinning color cursor would be pretty interesting. Love that user-friendly Mac. Sitting there waiting. And waiting. Hello Mac. Fair is fair.

I commented in his wordpress blog, but it’s worth putting my thoughts here as well:

Apple has perceived, probably correctly, that they have a window of opportunity to snipe against Microsoft while MS tries (and tries) to get Vista out the door. The snipes are going to have resonance because most computer users have used Windows and have doubtless been frustrated by at least one of its shortcomings. Some of those people might actually decide to give this Mac thing a try, and for some of those that are considering it, the fact that BootCamp means that they can go back to Windows if it doesn’t work out with MacOS will probably grease the skids.

Microsoft is free to snipe against the Mac, but what’s the point? The only people whose emotions are going to be provoked by a spinning colored cursor are recent Mac users, and many or most of them are quite fond of MacOS X, thank you very much. Even if they have doubts, they probably have suffered enough Windows annoyances at work, or heard about them from family members, to know that it’s probably not worth the trouble switching.