It’s hard to believe that the iPhone will be two years old in just a couple of months, and that, my friends, is the duration of a standard contract with a wireless carrier.

Now I assume those of you who didn’t trade up last year still have your first-generation model in regular use, and that it is still working quite nicely. That in itself may be quite an achievement in our disposable society, where most handsets can barely last half that long. I know my original iPhone is now in another owner’s hands, and my 3G model is working pretty much the same as new. Since it is also ensconced in a translucent case, it is, so far as I can tell, free of serious blemishes. Even though dropped a few times, the glass face remains unblemished.

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I suspect some of you don’t always get Apple’s method of innovation. It doesn’t necessarily mean they were first with everything they’ve done. I am sure, for example, that you will locate prior attempts at graphical user interfaces before the Lisa and later the Mac arrived.

Only Apple (and Microsoft) managed to survive, while many other attempts at more advanced — and friendlier — computer operating systems did not stand the test of time, or sustain sufficient sales to keep their creators in business. Of course, some of you might remind me that Microsoft’s anti-competitive tactics didn’t exactly help the growth of a number of graphical operating system alternatives.

These days, Linux provides a few of its own, and some are reasonably usable, as folks who have acquired netbooks can attest. It’s also true that Microsoft can’t get away with some of the nasty stunts they pulled in the past.

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In line with the expectations of the financial community, Microsoft’s earnings are slowing, and layoffs of 5,000 employees are in the offing. Can it get any worse for the world’s largest software maker?

In announcing the widely-expected decision, CEO Steve Ballmer blamed an 11% drop in quarterly profits on the tragic state of the PC industry. That, of course, is probably true as far as Windows is concerned. No doubt the current economic crisis contributed to Microsoft’s woes, but it’s also true that, despite dire predictions, Apple managed to hit record earnings during the last quarter.

While sales of Mac desktops were down, it simply meant that customers were choosing notebooks instead. So overall Mac sales remained surprisingly high. Indeed, it does appear that Apple succeeded, in part, by taking away sales from Microsoft. That’s something that Ballmer is never going to admit.

Even worse for Microsoft, Apple didn’t succeed by undercutting PCs on price. In fact, Apple gets most of its Mac sales from products that cost well over a grand, which is certainly far above the sweet spot in PC pricing. So much for the claims that the alleged “Apple Tax” would ultimately do the company in.

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All right, try to put yourself in the shoes of someone who has never purchased an Apple product, or perhaps did so way back when, but later migrated to the Dark Side. In recent months, you have been exposed to endless articles and ads about the joys of Macs, iPods and the ever-so-popular iPhone.

Now if you were once a Mac user, the next thing to consider is why you abandoned the platform. It’s not as if Apple didn’t do lots of things to drive you away, such as charging exorbitant prices for the hardware, and providing short-term limited warranties. Indeed, in those days all you got with your new Mac was 90 days parts and service.

Perhaps you loved your Mac, but didn’t appreciate the fact that the software you required for your business stopped supporting your favorite platform. They said go Windows, and so you did.

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