Regulars readers may have noticed that attitudes towards Apple at PCW Towers tend to be a mix of admiration and intense irritation. The cause of the latter reaction is usually Apple luminary Steve Jobs and his big mouth.

Typical was the way he launched Apple wireless networking in 1999 as if the company had invented it, although it had been in widespread use on PCs for two years.

Still, you have to hand it to the man: his hype works. Analysts ARCchart report that Apple's Airport Extreme has become the top-selling wireless router in the US, outselling brands like Linksys, Dlink and Netgear.

The Extreme sells at the Apple site for $179; a Linksys router with similar specs can be bought for $40 less and should work as well with a Mac as with a PC.

Looking at the entire base-station market, including models not packing a router, Apple comes fourth with an 11 percent share. That is still higher than its 6 percent share of the US computer market (globally it has only about 3 percent).

ARCchart concludes that PC owners must have been buying the Apple model, indicating the power of a brand. Of course it could also mean that Mac users have taken this long to save pennies enough to meet Apple's inflated prices, and are only now in a position to catch up with the rest of us.