a) as an absolute statement, you've just shown an amazing amount of naivete. Apple truly groks the needs of software users in their marketplace, it's what they're known for, and why they have such a strong and loyal following. The only people who deny that are people who don't pay attention. That doesn't mean that they don't also have a huge and successful marketing machine, but to say that it is more responsible for their success than the quality of their product and the understanding of the software needs of their customers... that's an absolutely ignorant statement.

b) as a relative statement... compared to whom? What other company out there is winning its marketshare through quality more than marketing, and doing so better than Apple? I can go down a list (MS, RedHat, Canonical, Sun, HP, IBM, QNX, Suse), and the ONLY one of those that stands out as a possibility is ... QNX (assuming they're doing better in their market than Apple is in theirs, which I actually kind of doubt ... QNX is probably being hurt the most by the arrival of embedded linux). IBM _maybe_. I hope Canonical is, but I'm not sure one way or the other. The others? Absolutely not.