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Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, gets restless every few years by what it considers “irritants” that threatens its hegemony in the software industry. It started off by crushing Apple in the ’80s and dominating the desktop OS market, then notably the Netscape browser in the late ’90s unfairly by bundling its Internet Explorer and distributing it for free with its Windows platform. Crsushign these rivals consolidated its position today as the cominant software maker for PCs.

But the PC age is dead. In the new Web era, Google is the new threat but thats another story.

It is the resurgence of Apple that it wants to suppress and kill again, especially when the uber-cool iPod and its accompanying iTunes are dominating the digital music market. Check out the array of alliances and weapons Microsoft is gathering in its arsenal against the iPod/ iTunes Generation.

The latest Microsoft (military) campaign is named:

Against the dual Apple combination of iTunes as the software (for downloads and PC playing) and iPod as the hardware (MP3 player), Microsoft has a 3-component combination as a competitive alternative:

1. the Windows Media Player,

2. URGE, a collaboration with MTV

3. MP3 player partnerships

Somehow, neither the Zen, clix, Urge, Playsforsure has the same buzzword appeal as an iPod. The iPod appeal is more than just a hodgepodge mix of disparate components. Its an integrated user experience.. some call it a religion. And more proof of it below:

The new Apple “Church” at 5th Avenue, New York City.

Here’s the Pope of the Apple Religion.

To beat a religion, you need to be another religion. Somehow, Microsoft is far from it.

Windows-related products just dun evoke the same passion. The sentence “Microsoft is coollll… ” is simply a misnomer.