You know, sometimes we get really tired of Apple being run like such a rinky-dink Mom and Pop outfit. Sure, the company sells billions of dollars' worth of goods and services each year, but seriously, everyone knows that all the real high-tech companies strut their stuff at COMDEX. Needless to say, once again Apple doesn't have a booth there, and that's going to have its usual devastating effect on Mac sales to consumer America; the average shmoe shopping for a new home computer is often heard to scoff, "Me, get a Mac? Yeah, right! Apple didn't even exhibit at COMDEX!" It's a real problem. Really.

See, if Apple were run like a real player in the tech world, it'd have a COMDEX presence far more visible and pervasive than just "a lot of people from Apple" milling around the show floor, as reported by AMDZone. Maybe it'd establish a presence more like Microsoft's. Now there's a company who does it up right. In addition to Bill Gates getting to deliver a keynote there (whereas Steve Jobs only seems to be able to book gigs at Macworld Expo, a show so third-rate it doesn't even take place in Vegas, for Pete's sake), we hear that Microsoft is using COMDEX to announce the immediate availability of its latest Mammoth Bonehead Security Hole™.

That's right, kidlings, according to InfoWorld, Microsoft has just announced its latest triumph in its bid to trumpet the clarion call of "Trustworthy Computing" even while delivering products so full of holes they give Swiss cheese and kitchen colanders inferiority complexes. It seems there's yet another vulnerability present in "most versions of its Windows operating systems and certain versions of the Internet Explorer web browser," and it's serious enough that Microsoft classifies it as "critical." (Foundstone, the software vulnerability management company who discovered the bug, classifies it as "really quite dangerous," which we personally feel has a better ring to it.)

Incidentally, "critical" is the "highest possible rating under the company's new vulnerability rating system, which was announced Tuesday." A new security flaw and a brand new way of rating how badly it sucks? Wow, Microsoft's got lots of impressive new stuff to roll out during COMDEX.

Meanwhile, where's Apple? Let's face it, everyone: until Apple announces a major security flaw at COMDEX, people just aren't going to take the company seriously. Ah, well... Maybe next year...