I'd rather buy a Mac, says Microsoft's James Allchin

Windows development chief James Allchin has said he was being "purposefully dramatic" in an email to Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer in which he said he would buy an Apple Mac if he wasn't a Microsoft employee.

The email, sent in 2003, outlined how development on the new Windows Vista operating system had gone astray and emerged this week at an Iowa anti-trust trial against Microsoft.

Allchin has since said that the email was a "rant" written to force a change in the way Vista was being developed. "I made the comment for effect about buying a Mac if I was not working at Microsoft," Allchin said this week. "Taken out of context, this comment could be confusing."