Venkat,
I think this is half baked analysis and if the author's intention was to trigger a 'comments avalanche',then mission accomplished.
1.First off, i don't think it is an 'apple to apple' comparison (well...I own a now discontinued M:robe player from Olympus and guess what, it is proprietary. So is Creative's players or Sony's players or i am assuming MS own Zune. Atleast, he should have compared iPod's strategy with MS own X-box or Sony's playstation.
2.A case of "sour grapes" when he talks about Apple not 'innovating' and being a copycat to LG or other pioneers of iTouch iScreen iDisplays or whatever they are!Guess what? Darwin rulez...The best survives...Right now, it is iPhone.They got it right.
3.Ofcourse, all companies strive for the golden "lock-in" ( Not that consumers don't have a choice, it is how you cater,retain and expand your customer base.In MIT Open Course Ware, there is an excellent course talking precisely about this and one case study talks about Apple being the pioneer in this field - that's for another discussion)

anywayz, thanks for sharing the article.

Hi Vasu:
I leave it to the PC World Author to defend his original thoughts, I too agree that the author probably wished to seek thoughts and feedbacks. My idea of this post was just to highlight my experience with Microsoft on its transparency.