by , 12:45 PM EDT, April 11th, 2008

The incremental improvements to Mac OS X, virtualization and the iPhone SDK show that Apple is positioning itself to challenge Microsoft for computing dominance, according to BusinessWeek on Friday. In contrast, Microsoft has clung to a bloated OS that has saddled Vista users with an average computer.

Gary Morgenthaler believes that Apple's strategy is based on what may appear to be unrelated moves, but which actually create a broad, full-fledged strategy aimed at Microsoft. He believes broader battle lines are forming.

There is no longer any doubt that the Windows code base is too big and too difficult to change or innovate with. [Yesterday, it was reported that Gartner said exactly that.]

The modern, small sized core of Mac OS X and the nimbleness of Apple has allowed Apple to come out with multitouch in the iPhone and then quickly move it to their notebook line. Apple can target new markets faster than Microsoft with this approach.

Given Apple's advantages, Mr. Morgenthaler wrote, Apple can expect to expand its business market with Leopard Server and take the business mobile computing and smartphone market by storm. Echoing and amplifying the Gartner conclusion, the author concluded: "It's Apple's growing customer acceptance vs. Microsoft's rising customer pain. By failing to modernize its operating system in a timely way, Microsoft has left its flank wide open for an all-out assault from a once-vanquished rival."