In yesterday’s column, I discussed the slow erosion of Windows, compared to the Mac OS and Linux. Clearly the former has the most to lose, and it goes to show that Apple’s ongoing Mac versus PC campaign is bearing fruit.

Despite slowing sales at Apple Stores in the last quarter, 50% of the people who buy new Macs there supposedly are new to the platform and likely Windows switchers. While I’m not about to get involved in an argument over statistics, it appears that the financial community is buying these figures, so I’ll accept them too.

Now there’s a story in TG Daily covering the ground you’ve already read about, but producing some truly fascinating projections as to where the Mac versus Windows operating system war is heading.

I’m sure many of you have already read the article and, since it opens in a separate browser window by design, you can see where I get that six year figure from. If the still-formidable Windows market share continues to decline at the existing accelerated pace, according the article’s author, Rick C. Hodgin, “Microsoft’s OS would fall off the charts completely sometime around 2022. At this rate of accelerating increase for Mac’s OS, the point of parity with Windows (equal market share) should be reached in or near 2015 — just over 6 years out.”

Now maybe Hodgin’s being a little optimistic here, although I bet some of you would hope that Windows 7 will become a greater failure than Vista and only hasten Microsoft’s fall from the top of the world.

Whether that’s the case or not, I can’t help but recall when the satellite-generated visage of Bill Gates appeared to jeers at a Macworld Expo keynote in 1997. At the time, Steve Jobs admonished Mac users that the operating system wars were over, Microsoft was victorious, and it’s time to move on.

Perhaps he was right, then, at least in his own mind. I mean, with Microsoft holding a market share of over 95%, what hope did a relatively small niche computer maker, such as Apple, have against such dominance?

Indeed, as you read in the TG Daily article, Windows didn’t get below 95% until 2006, and then just barely. Indeed, the change was so subtle that few members of the media bothered to notice. However, when the figures dropped to less than 90% in January, you had to see a trend, one that actually began when Firefox took a healthy portion of the browser market.

Now before we look at what Apple has accomplished, consider Mozilla. This is the company spun off by AOL when Netscape crashed and burned. How could Firefox appeal to anyone except for power users? After all, it’s not as if you got a copy preloaded on your PC, unless the manufacturer made a licensing deal. Regardless, your default selection was and remains Internet Explorer.

Despite this, more and more Windows users are taking the time to actually download something else. With nearly a third of the market now in the hands of Firefox, Safari and some lesser players, this trend is no longer the province of an “elite” class. People from all walks of life are ditching Internet Explorer in their homes and offices.

When it comes to personal computers, don’t forget that, despite falling sales for desktops, Apple managed to keep Mac sales in the holiday quarter pretty close to the previous quarter and ahead of 2007. In contrast, PC sales flattened or fell, and Microsoft is giving the ax to 5,000 of its employees and an unknown number of contractors.

Now it’s fair to suggest that Microsoft’s leadership may have begun to realize that they are overstaffed, and have been for some time, and they need to make the company slim and trim and ready to fight Apple to reassert Window’s prominence.

Understand, though, that the emerging trend TG Daily sees is not a done deal. It’s very possible that Steve Ballmer and his crew will begin to understand there are problems with the way they’re doing business, and they’ll come back more powerful than ever.

However, they no longer have the clear field that existed in the mid-1990s. They are being watched closely by President Obama’s reorganized Department of Justice and there are still issues to be resolved with the European Union. Microsoft can’t just streamroll the competition anymore without consequences.

Indeed, PC manufacturers have said no to Microsoft’s entreaties to stop selling Windows XP. The public has said no to the Zune and, while Microsoft protests that they are going to continue to develop and improve their failed digital media player, that’s clearly a gigantic waste of money.

When it comes to the Windows Mobile platform, the iPhone, BlackBerry and Google’s Android are combining to keep Microsoft at bay. It’s not as if they can suddenly release a new version of anything and have the media and the public eagerly accepting their products as the next great things.

Yes, Apple could make some serious missteps and descend into the doldrums of irrelevance. If Steve Jobs doesn’t return as CEO this summer, some feel that Apple will soon lose its momentum. But there are 35,000 Apple employees who have absorbed the Jobs’ DNA and vision. Even if he’s gone, that state of affairs is not apt to change now or in the foreseeable future.

As I’ve said before, Microsoft is in big trouble.

Whenever you hear people tell you that the Mac has a teeny tiny market share, you should alert them to the latest news, because they seem to be somewhat out of touch. You see, according to Net Applications, which surveys a huge chunk of Web sites to gather such details, the Mac OS gathered 9.93 percent of the total in January. Small yes, tiny no.

Even better, media analysts who have said that Microsoft owns 90% of the world’s personal computer desktops need to begin to revise their estimates. The latest number is 88.26%. Now that may be close enough, but don’t forget how Firefox fared not so many years ago when it surpassed 10% of the browser market and the skeptics still suggested that Internet Explorer 7, combined with the impending arrival of Windows Vista, would halt that upstart’s progress.

These days, Mozilla’s worldwide share is 21.5%, Safari (both Mac and PC) lies at 8.3% and Internet Explorer is holding on to 67.6%. With nearly a third of the market using a non-Microsoft browser, webmasters have fewer excuses than ever to tailor their content strictly to the eccentricities of Internet Explorer. Of course, they’ll be forced to often develop workarounds that allow IE to render the content, but maybe Internet Explorer 8 will remedy at least some of that disparity.

This isn’t to say that everything is coming up roses for Apple. It’s quite true that they confounded the street when they delivered stellar sales figures and earnings for the past quarter. But within those numbers were troubling signs. Mac sales were high, and 71% were note-books, on the upside. Desktops, which include the iMac, Mac mini and Mac Pro, declined.

For competitive reasons, Apple doesn’t really break out the specifics, except to say that the iMac did well, even though it’s clearly overdue for a refresh, which may come this month. The Mac mini is also overdue, but Apple isn’t answering questions about its future, so we don’t know if it’ll just get a cheap refresh, with speedier internals, or there will be a major revision involving the case and other details.

Then there’s the Mac Pro, Apple’s powerful workstation, whose sales also faltered. Some are suggesting it’s because there hasn’t been an update to the product since early 2008, and tight money has made this model’s prime audience, content creators, more hesitant to spend the extra dollars right now.

If you can believe the published reports, Intel will have more powerful Xeon processors available by late March, which would perhaps make for a spring upgrade. No doubt graphic cards will be brought up to date as well, but it’s questionable whether the aging case or its internals will be subject to further alteration. It’s not as if the looks that resemble an oversized aluminum cheese grater are going to be changed, or even that there’s any reason for Apple revise its looks. Most people who own a Mac Pro stick them below their desks, and spend their work days staring at the display.

What won’t happen, no doubt, is an end to production of desktop Macs. I realize where the market is heading, and that even PCs are going portable in larger numbers. But for me and others, there will be a need for a powerful desktop computer for a number of years, and so long as Apple can continue to sell a decent number of them, they won’t disappear.

In fact, there are now rumors, unconfirmed as usual, that at least the high-end iMacs will get one of those new low-power quad-core processors from Intel. Of course, everything has a downside, and such a model is apt to cannibalize sales from the Mac Pro, but to what degree nobody can estimate, except possibly for Apple’s own product planners who work with data that nobody outside of the company can access.

I do think, however, that lower desktop sales probably put the kibosh on the prospects for a midrange expandable desktop Mac. In theory, it’s a neat idea, but even with a growing Mac market share, it is questionable how much they want to fragment their desktop product lineup. Just because the media and some Mac users clamor for such a beast doesn’t mean the interest is sufficient to guarantee success.

The other high question mark is whether Apple intends to play in the netbook space. Yes, I realize that Apple’s leadership continues to pour cold water on the concept, or claim that the iPhone and iPod touch are their answer to such needs.

But that’s not the entire picture. Despite being quite small, a netbook has a workable keyboard, and much greater screen real estate. While they are otherwise little different from regular note-books, Apple has lots of possibilities to make a play in this arena. Again, consider the implications of a Pro version of the iPhone, with both physical keyboard and touch capability. Or maybe just a USB input for a standard keyboard if you feel you need one.

One thing is certain: Even though Apple refuses to recognize the 25th anniversary of the Mac, they still have the mojo to amaze us. Despite the continued absence of Steve Jobs from the company, you should expect some genuine surprises in the next few months.

You have to wonder just what Bill Gates is thinking, upon learning that the company he co-founded is laying off 5,000 workers. This is the very first time Microsoft has had to resort to this unfortunate practice in its 34 years, and the situation may actually get worse before it gets better.

As you might expect, CEO Steve Ballmer and his minions will engaged in whatever sort of spin control they can muster. It’s the fault of the economy. The PC market has suffered seriously as a result, but things will eventually get better.

Well, I’d never credit Ballmer with a healthy dose of reality. Indeed, he poo-poohed the possibility that the iPhone would succeed, and he’d rather not admit that Macs are gaining in market share while PC sales have flattened and begun a decline.

A new development out of left field that might also hurt Microsoft big time is the arrival of those ultra-cheap note-books known as netbooks, and that’s true before we know whether Apple is going to enter that product segment.

Story continued in this week’s Tech Night Owl Newsletter.

You know that Apple clearly has no interest in honoring the 25th anniversary of the Mac. The event wasn’t mentioned during Philip Schiller’s keynote at Macworld Expo, nor in the recent quarterly financial conference with industry analysts.

The latest ads don’t harken back to the original 1984 commercial that attracted so much attention at the time, nor does the number 25 reflect anything especially meaningful for Apple.

I suppose that people who stuck with the platform through thick and thin might feel a little slighted by all of this. After all, we all endured some occasionally savage taunts from all those PC users who felt we were afraid to get our hands dirty and work on a real personal computer, rather than what they regarded as an overpriced plaything.

Certainly, Apple has done its best over the years to show the finger to Mac users, by producing bad products, unstable operating systems and all the rest. But now that things are on the upswing — despite the economic meltdown — you have to wonder whether Apple has become so full of itself on the way to the top that it has totally forgotten how it was allowed to stay in business all these years.

Certainly Apple is on a roll, and a lot of their current prosperity came in large part because the iPod and iPhone introduced millions of skeptical PC users to their products. If these gadgets are so great, what about getting rid of those nasty Windows PCs and trying something that really just works?

Over the years, the Windows conversion rate at the Apple Stores have been estimated at 50%. That’s an awfully large number and, along with Apple’s online store and third-party resellers, millions of newcomers have come to the platform.

But you have to wonder whether this new generation of Mac users might be cataloged as a band of fair weather friends. After all, what might happen if their experiences with their new Macs aren’t so great after all? What about Apple’s penchant to release products riddled with bugs on Day One?

Take the first generation of Intel-based note-books, for example. MacBooks developing discoloration on the case, swelling batteries and overly hot chassis. Even the new generation of unibody models have had graphic defects that are, in part, addressed by a recent firmware update. But some of these note-books might actually have to be replaced under warranty.

Certainly the iPhone 3G left the starting gate with connection problems, particularly in marginal reception areas when the device had to switch between 3G and EDGE and perhaps back again, where there would be occasionally disconnections? What about slow-running, crashing applications, and taking what seemed to be forever to load a contact list?

Yes, firmware updates have addressed the most serious problems, and it’s not as if loads of people have returned their iPhones in disgust. But how much is Apple pushing one’s tolerance level when initial product releases have serious bugs? And don’t get me started about the MobileMe fiasco or the initial release of Leopard.

Now loyal Mac users would tolerate all this abuse for the greater good, just as they’ve done over the past 25 years. But would the newly-minted Mac users be willing to accept buggy products and stick with the platform, or would they decide that Windows maybe wasn’t so terrible after all?

Now I suppose you could suggest that jumping back and forth between computer platforms is no trivial task and that most people, assuming that the problems they encounter are not terribly serious, are not going to so quickly ditch their Macs and acquire new PC boxes.

I wouldn’t even hazard a guess as to how much frustration Apple must create among its new customers before they are forever lost. It’s not as if they deliberately build defective products, or attempt to deceive their customers as to features and performance. And, yes, I know there have been a few lawsuits alleging the inability of some iPhone 3Gs to achieve twice the speed on a 3G network compared to EDGE. I think they are largely nonsensical, since Apple makes the limitations of its promise quite clear in the fine print.

More to the point, to what extent is Apple taking care of customers who have problems? Well, in that respect, they apparently do surprisingly well, at least in tech support surveys. The Apple Stores are legendary for the Genius Bar, where you can get free help for a number of issues and even get your Macs updated with the latest maintenance releases — and that comes in real handy if your own Internet connection is not as fast as it might be.

Compare that to the experience of getting help with a Dell. Yes, it does appear that founder and CEO Michael Dell is working hard to fix the company’s tarnished support image. But consider the typical Windows driver and stability issues and imagine the horror show that ensues when the average PC user tries to get some assistance.

So long as Apple can continue to show a huge distinction between the before and after user experience, and perhaps improve product and software reliability somewhat, these new Mac users may stick with the platform. But please, Apple, try not to forget the millions who kept you in business before all this prosperity occurred?