The Mac's original competition—the green-phosphorus-screened stuff made by RadioShack, DEC, and then-big kahuna IBM—now inhabit landfills, both physically and psychically. Yet the Macintosh is not only thriving, it's doing better than at any time in its history. Much of the attention directed at Apple over the past few years has focused on new products like the iPod and the iPhone. Click wheels and touch screens have distracted us from the news that the Mac market share has quietly crept into double digits. That's up from barely 3 percent in 1997, just before the prodigal CEO returned to the fold after a 12-year exile. Any way you cut it, the Mac is on the rise while Windows is waning. Roll over, Methuselah—the Macintosh is still peaking (Levy).

Despite Apple’s current explosion commercial success, that does not mean that Microsoft is down for any sort of count. In the case of computers the PC offers the same brand of high quality as the iMacs and the MacBooks without the hefty price tag. Microsoft also has the booming new Windows 7 operating system that has quickly become the cutting edge of technology. "With 88% of respondents indicating that they have or will upgrade to Windows 7 in the next two years, Windows 7 is being adopted far more rapidly than Vista," the analyst firm reports. "In a comparable three-year time period, Vista deployment barely topped 25% while Windows XP remained on more than 50% of business computers" (Brodkin).

Through both companies advanced technological prowess they’ve managed to achieve a revamping of the education system. Very rarely do you see overhead projectors or even chalkboards in the class room anymore. Now, a lot of schools, in particular, Loudoun County Schools, operate using Promethean Boards which are linked directly to the teacher’s computer which is run by Windows XP. Art departments all over the country have adopted the use of iMac computers for their classes, as the sleek silver computers; have the screen resolution and the capabilities to handle programs such as Adobe Photoshop.

It is not only the class room that is receiving technological revamps, but business offices are as well. There have been talks of the iPad replacing traditional pens and papers, as well as laptops in the board rooms; the reason being that the iPad is smaller and more compact with the capabilities of attaching its own keyboard. The reason for the switch is that is opens up the spectrum of things that can be done; meetings are no longer confined to the four walls of the office building. The iPad's visual power-its screen has 132 pixels per inch-and the ease with which it can be viewed collaboratively and flipped to show different perspectives makes it a useful tool on the road, meeting with clients in their homes or talking one-on-one with a client at the advisor's office. "The iPad has its limits and doesn't replace a computer," Muchler says. "But it is an effective tool that can help accomplish some tasks during a client meeting-for example, a portfolio stress test, a change in a big financial plan or a rebalancing of a 401(k)-that might otherwise require yet another meeting or follow-up contact’’ (Heires)