Microsoft's Lauren

This advertising war keeps getting better. One of Apple's new Mac ads features a bubbly young woman who just happens to have red hair, and who just happens to be "looking to buy a great computer." In contrast with Microsoft's Lauren, of course, Apple's version spurns the advances of the slick, top-of-the-line PC (Patrick Warburton), choosing the Mac based on its promise of headache-free ease of use.

What's more interesting here is that Apple, while implicitly poking fun at the Microsoft campaign, doesn't actually address its central contention, which is that Macs are overpriced.

Turner

On that subject, Microsoft chief operating officer Kevin Turner recently crowed about Apple's legal department calling him to ask Microsoft to stop running the ads because Apple lowered its prices by some modest amount. Although Turner said Microsoft would continue running the ads, the company did alter one of them to remove the reference to the specific price, while still emphasizing the higher cost.

So it wouldn't be surprising to see Apple to poke a little fun at Turner in an upcoming TV commercial, or maybe in one of the custom versions it plays at its special events. Of course, there's only one television personality who would be appropriate to cast as the homespun Microsoft executive, so the whole thing would hinge on whether Dr. Phil would be willing and available to take on the role.

Related: Parallels courts PC refugees with "Switch to Mac" package