Apple has their niche market and it is a highly profitable and visible one. They're happy. Targeting the budget market has not been a significant part of their business plan since OSX debuted.
If anything MS should be convincing people not to buy even cheaper Linux enabled netbooks instead as they seem to be under the impression that every PC sold = a license of Windows sold.
Or maybe the Linux crowd is just too geeky and too small for anyone to take their commercial jabs at. But, the day that Linux can be used invisibly by mass market general consumers is the day that MS will really have their work cut out for them and the marketing feat will have to be something like "it's much cooler to buy better specced PCs to run our operating system that has all this great functionality!"







