From AppleInsider.com: Steve Ballmer calls Apple's Mac growth a "rounding error"

"Share versus Apple, you know, we think we may have ticked up a little tick," Ballmer said at the 2009 Financial Analyst Meeting, "but when you get right down to it, it's a rounding error. Apple's share change, plus or minus from ours, they took a little share a couple quarters, we took share back a couple quarters."

A "rounding error"?

"At least when Apple attacks us, the primary attack that comes from Apple is, 'Hey, at the end of the day, we have the coolest hardware,'" he said. "When you see the hardware, the PC designs that will come out this Christmas with Windows 7, I think that conventional wisdom can begin to really change. There is some really amazing, amazing work. So it is possible to get great hardware innovation, even when hardware and software comes from separate companies."

It's funny that Steve Ballmer still doesn't get it.  It's not just hardware that's the problem.  It's Windows and the integration with hardware.  Apple's "coolness" comes from good software and hardware design and a strong design aesthetic.  Apple products are designed to be simpler and to work better.  Better design through hardware and software.  When Apple wanted to release a phone, it designed a touch screen and the interface to go with it.  Owning the hardware and software means tighter integration and experience.