I'm sure Apple fans will agree, but consider this statement: "Without a doubt, [Microsoft CEO Steve] Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today." Well, that doesn't mean ALL CEOs, of course. But it's not something that came from a Mac fan site, or even a tech commentator for the mainstream media. Instead, this pronouncement originates in a story published in a prestigious business publication, Forbes magazine, entitled "Oops! Five CEOs Who Should Have Already Been Fired (Cisco, GE, WalMart, Sears, Microsoft)." I won't bother with the other four.

Number one, with a bullet, is Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer who, over his twelve years on the job, has utterly wrecked the company's reputation as the dominant player in the technology industry. Yes, Windows still powers 90% of PC desktops. Yes, Office is still the most popular productivity suite on the planet. But Microsoft's efforts to spread the joy beyond their 1990's accomplishments have been largely unsuccessful.

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Last winter, the Apple haters were delighted to learn that Amazon appeared to have a winner on their hands with the Kindle Fire tablet. That 7-inch gadget sold for a "mere" $200, and evidently did pretty well over the holiday season, with reported sales of several million units. Well, at least that's what the industry analysts said since, of course, Amazon never discloses unit sales of hardware in their quarterly financials. I suppose sales were to be inferred by sampling dealer sell-throughs, or by examining Amazon's earnings. But since many of those Kindles are sold directly, the results are little more than educated or not-so-educated guesses.

Indeed, if you can believe those reports, the Fire took control of more than half the otherwise stagnant Android tablet market. Sure, Amazon puts their own face on the Fire, so it's not obviously Android, but that still counts as support for the platform.

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Not so long ago I read a piece that quoted a supposedly respected industry analyst suggesting that the iPad's share of the tablet market would begin to take a huge dump later this year or the next. With more and more Android tablets with which to compete -- and don't forget the Android-powered Amazon Kindle Fire -- along with the forthcoming expected avalanche of Windows 8 tablets, Apple's overwhelming dominance may be short-lived.

Now I suppose the estimates about a declining market share might have been vindicated some because of the apparent success of the Kindle Fire, a 7-inch tablet, in the holiday quarter last year. On the other hand, the latest reports of sales appear to indicate that the Kindle Fire has tanked. While lots of people were willing to try them out as possible gifts, the Fire doesn't seem to have staying power. That's clear. Worse, if Amazon does deliver a 10-inch version, as reported, the higher price will put it in iPad territory. Amazon has not yet demonstrated the ability to compete in the general-purpose tablet space.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook surely charmed Twitter users -- and lots of others -- with that famous comment about Windows 8 and the merging desktop and mobile operating systems. It would be very much like trying to combine a refrigerator with a toaster, he said, using extreme examples to get his point across.

But maybe there's more to be said about that subject.

The feeling that OS X and the iOS would some day merge was fueled by the arrival of Lion, which represented a clear move in that direction. Not only were there more gestures in OS X, although I won't bother to list them, but certain features, such as full-screen apps and even that dreadful Launchpad, were reminiscent of the iOS. Well, you don't have to use either, nor accept the reversal in the direction of the scrollbars, or their part-time mouse-activated appearance.

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