Is Apple a bunch of liars or damn liars?

The ever-sassy Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is pointing out that Apple is essentially lying like Satan lied to man about the cancer-causing potency of high-fructose corn syrup. In “Bean Counter,” for example, Apple suggests that Microsoft spends more on advertising than on “fixing Vista.” Adrian tells the honest truth:

For each $1 of sales Apple spends:

– 1.9 cents on Advertising
– 3.3 cents on R&D

For each $1 of sales Microsoft spends:

– 2.6 cents on Advertising
– 13.9 cents on R&D

This would be interesting except for the fact that Microsoft has to spread that 13.9 cents over 89,809 employees, most of whom, presumably, are building new software products to replace Vista. Apple’s 28,000 employees are also hard at work building hardware, something Microsoft rarely has to worry about, so we’d assume there is a 10 cent spend in that $1 on prototyping and manufacturing. Apple also produces approximately 20 real products – most of them retreads of old products – while Microsoft has plenty of teams producing stuff that may never see the light of day. OS X is already strong and steady – it doesn’t need a Vista moment to make it better – and the products are generally popular. And those Vista/Windows ads did suck.

Again, Kingsley-Hughes is essentially trying to get a rise out of us MacTards. Negative Mac stories are delicious link-bait and ZDNet could use them some link bait – no harm no foul. That said, we should always remember that no matter how jovially bumbling John Hodgman appears, Microsoft is still number one in terms of market share. Calling Apple out for trying to convince people to buy their products is un-American and frankly socialistic. Could Marx’s evil theories behind this scurrilous, vindictive vituperation? Perhaps, friends. Perhaps.