Everybody should rush right out and buy Bill Gates a thank-you card, because he's been hard at work figuring out just what will be the perfect personal computer for you to buy in the future. But when you go card-shopping, feel free to skimp; we see no reason that you should care enough to send the very best, since Bill's perfect future PC has an awful lot in common with the Macs that have been coming out of Cupertino lately. In fact, what the heck: go whole-hog, buy a Hallmark, and send it to Steve, instead-- because once again, Apple appears to be way ahead of the Wintel curve.

As faithful viewer Carlos Santellanes kindly pointed out, a ZDNet AnchorDesk report has all the details about Bill's perfect PC. Granted, some of the listed features are ones we'd love to see come to the Mac platform, too, like a minimum of 128 MB of RAM, a boot time of under 30 seconds, a minimum of four USB ports, and a built-in TV tuner. But others should sound shockingly familiar to anyone who's been following Apple's product lines for the past couple of years:

• "A quiet PC, never more than 37 decibels, so the machine is welcome in kitchen, bedroom, and living room"

• "The system must not display any BIOS text during start-up"

• "Laptop battery life must support playing a feature-length DVD or three hours of typical application use"

• "The system includes at least two... IEEE-1394 FireWire ports for high-speed devices"

• "The system includes a 10/100 Ethernet adapter"

• "The system does not allow end-user access to expansion bus cards" (iMac, anyone?)

So let's get this straight-- Bill's perfect "PC of the Future" is a "hub for digital devices" that boasts at least 128 MB of RAM, a 40 GB hard drive, and a minimum of 10/100 Ethernet; relies entirely on USB and FireWire for device connectivity; uses a minimum 1024x768 flat-panel display which "integrates USB... for an uncluttered desktop"; includes both CD-RW and DVD playback; is super-quiet and features an "ultra-small enclosure"; and de-emphasizes user-installed internal expansion cards. Moreover, Microsoft fully admits that "obviously, creating a system that meets all these specs will come at significant cost."

Sounds to us like some enterprising Apple dealer should give Bill a call and sell him a boatload of Cubes and 15-inch flat-panel Apple Studio Displays. Actually, what the heck, Bill's rich-- sell him some Cinema Displays instead. And if the "CD-RW and DVD" is a deal-breaker, maybe he'd be willing to give up his super-quiet operation and ultra-small enclosure for a SuperDrive-equipped Power Mac, instead. In any case, it looks to us like Bill would be far happier with one of today's Macs than most of the Wintel boxes out there... Then again, let's be honest-- who wouldn't?