So I was reading the latest issue of Time magazine, when I spied a flashy, somewhat cartoonish ad telling me that “You Need the Speed of Norton 2009.”

Do I?

Well, when I went to Symantec’s Web site to see just what this spectacular product was supposed to do, I found a link to the advertised free trial copy, but had to navigate through another screen or two before there was any information that this was strictly a Windows product.

Now this is not to say that Symantec doesn’t publish Mac security software. They actually have four Mac products available that, in combination, provide many of the features of their Windows applications. They have a long history building Mac products, and their they typically get pretty decent reviews. But, typical of a number of software developers, they do not distinguish the Mac from the Windows lineups in their ads.

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Do you think maybe I’m being a little too lurid with this headline? As they said in that classic movie, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a…” Well, you get the picture, but in this case, I am quite serious. I think Microsoft is in serious trouble, more so because they are so flushed with high profits that their executives won’t face the truth.

Certainly, it’s hard to think of a company with a number one market position as beleaguered or facing eventual demise. Then again, with the current economic crisis taking down giants in the financial industry, you can bet that a company’s fortunes can quickly change, sometimes unexpectedly.

In Microsoft’s case, perhaps their failed ads featuring Bill Gates and comic Jerry Seinfeld reflect the mindset of Steve Ballmer and other key executives. They want to return to the glorious days of the 1990s, when Microsoft could do nothing wrong, and was conquering competitors right and left.

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

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You love them, you hate them. The products are great, but some of the marketing and product initiatives are inscrutable. Even though Apple is supposedly doing surprisingly well during this holiday season, despite the economic downturn that may have not bottomed out, I’m sure they’ve also done plenty to upset customers in one way or another.

Take the recent report about Apple’s highly-touted DisplayPort digital monitor hookup scheme on the new notebooks. The advantages are clear, because it merges both digital audio and video into a single tiny hookup, just like the HDMI ports you find on your high definition flat panel TV.

DisplayPort is based on an industry standard that, alas, also mandates severe copy protection methods, known as DisplayPort Content Protection (DPCP), and it’s come back to bite some new owners of these hot-selling notebooks. It is, by the way, essentially the same as the HDCP measures used for HDMI.

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