I have always wondered why the entire PC market is just so inept. Apple routinely designs better looking computers and charges a premium for such products. Not so for PC makers who think if they keep designing commodity looking products they will do better. Well surprise, this is not a winning strategy.

To drive this point home in fact, Dell has done what I suggested back in a March, 2007 column where I asked if any PC maker can just copy Apple. Even if PC makers can't innovate, I imagined that copying Apple should be easy enough to pull off.

Although Gateway tried to copy the iMac a while back, it took Dell to do a good enough job that The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg took notice and actually complemented their efforts. This is a big deal for Mossberg and for Dell.

In the end, Mossberg suggests Apple over the PC but this is partially because the PC uses Microsoft's much maligned Vista operating system. Oh -- and one last point, The Dell is more expensive than the Apple!