Whenever an analyst wants to write something without thinking, it’s easy to pontificate on such silliness as the alleged resemblance of the iPod to the Sony Walkman. Both gained iconic status, but the latter was eventually largely supplanted by me-too products that were cheaper and offered identical or additional features.

And let’s not forget the famous IBM PC, where the clone makers took the market from under them.

So wouldn’t it seem logical that Apple’s days in the sun will ultimately come to a close in the same fashion? Well, at least that has been the theory every time a potential iPod killer is discovered. The only thing is that the imitator usually self-destructs, or simply fades into near-irrelevance.

One example was the Microsoft Zune, a music player that was almost as good, but merely imitated an older iPod rather than a recent model. Microsoft simply followed the pattern. So what went wrong?

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How well I remember the claim, years ago, that Macs weren’t really business computers. The interface was simply too cute, and you had to use a genuine PC to get real business chores done. Of course, they forgot that Microsoft Excel actually premiered on the Mac platform before it was ported to Windows. The same holds true for Word.

At the same time, the Mac has always been the preferred platform for content creation. Whether creating pages for a newspaper, or building fantastic special effects for movies, you’ll find that Macs have historically done the job better.

Now I don’t know about you, but I’ve always regarded publishing and the entertainment industry as businesses. You develop a product or service for which you are paid for your labors. So how does that differ from the person who enters data in spreadsheets and gets a paycheck as a result?

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At one time, whenever Apple released a new or upgraded product, it would get major coverage at a Macworld Expo and WWDC. Today, two annual events are simply not sufficient to cover the range of Apple’s development process. Indeed, every few weeks, something new arrives with the Apple logo on it, from a new, cutting-edge product, to a simple refresh for an existing product line.

With few exceptions, most of those introductions seem to happen on Tuesdays, perhaps to give you and me time to recover from the weekend and get caught up with our daily routine. Sometimes, Apple breaks the mold, as they did Monday morning with the quiet news that the iMac line received its anticipated speed bump with the new Intel Penryn processors.

At first brush, it’s just the processor speed ratings that are higher. The lower power requirements of the new chips, though, might result in a minor decrease in your monthly electric bill, and everything helps. But there’s rather more than meets the eye here, and for once Apple is actually moving its iMac line ahead of its portable sibling, the MacBook Pro.

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Although couched in an expected and extremely positive spin about future earnings, Microsoft didn’t have an awful lot to crow about this past quarter. Income from Windows was rather lackluster, even though sales of new PCs are on the increase around the world.

So what’s at work here, and why the disparity?

Well, one alleged reason is that a large portion of the increase in PC sales are in the third world, where computers are sold without Microsoft’s operating system and, they tell us, Windows and Office are often pirated.

But worse for Microsoft is the fact that the sales of new Macs continue to exceed analyst expectations, and are going through the roof. However, Microsoft has so far not chosen to address that troubling issue.

Worse for Microsoft, nobody is suggesting that situation is going to change anytime soon, and the fact that a reported 50% of Mac buyers at Apple’s retail stores are new to the platform — and I’ll take the figures as accurate even if it’s an open question how they were compiled — clearly means that Microsoft has something to fear.

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