Summary
Apple rarely stumbles (at least in a way that hurts their growth). Contrasting what they have with Microsoft is part of their strategy and helps them justify slightly higher prices.
Analysis
Contrary to popular opinion, Macs are not significantly more expensive than their PC counterparts if you compare apples to apples (no pun intended). When you include true cost of ownership, they are quite a bit less expensive and have much better functionality. Their biggest, but not widely publicized, advantage is in their virtualization. With Parallels, VMWare or Virtual Box you can simultaneously run MacOS X, Windows (any flavor) and Linux (any flavor). With shared folders and interprocessor communication they achieve "no reason to go anyplace else". I have Windows 7 running alongside OS X and am getting great performance as well as functionality I can not get anywhere else.
Microsoft made a bad mistake by having no easy migration path from XP. If you have to completely re-install all your applications, they are opening the door wide for Apple to say "if you have to start from scratch, start with us".
Apple has lots of bigger, faster, and better machines waiting in the wings until the market is ready for them.
Will Apple go after the netbooks market - my personal opinion is that they will not but they will produce an iPhone on steroids which will straddle the telephony and computer markets but with some new twists to really change the game.
