Microsoft has already dubbed Apple’s effort the ‘ka-ching’ and has countered with a Tarot-based device. Meanwhile, Google are said to be working on a Ouija tablet, the result of a collaboration between Edison, Einstein and Isaac Newton.

But pundits believe the rivals will struggle to lure followers away from Android, who recently released a small bag of tiny stones with predictive text. As TechRadar observed, ‘these new open-source rune-stones really can be described as ‘iconic’.’

Quaz and The All New Jeni B

‘I’m now looking into trademarking the phrase ‘You look like you’re writing a letter’,’ Digby added.  ‘Not to make money this time, I just want to wipe the gormless look off that annoying paperclip’s face. And then I’ll move onto ‘You have unused icons on your desktop’. I mean, really? Is that your problem or is that mine? Anyway, can’t stop, I’m having my driveway re-gravelled with crushed Faberge Eggs.’

UnoEye

‘I thought the private sector was going to take up the slack after all the cuts’ said Mr Strachan, who also has experience as a wheelie bin logistics assistant, and a ‘Making sure everyone knows you’re LGBT’ Comms associate.

‘Microsoft didn’t want to know, even though I pointed out that their keyboards are a bit racist and Bill Gates should try being transexual occasionally, for balance.’

So far, Derek has only been offered menial work at Tesco. ‘Morally it’s incredibly conflicting working in a for-profit regime.’ 

‘Normally’ said Derek, ‘I oppose such exploitation. I can be an effective counterweight to the profit mind-set, but the Retail Sector don’t seem interested. It’s really depressing. I’m thinking of taking them to a tribunal.’

Runestone Cowboy

Mrs Elcombe unleashed the withering indictment while visiting her grandson, Chris Elcombe, a systems analyst at Microsoft’s UK headquarters in Reading.  ’It all kicked off when I tried to show her how she could use the internet to access a timetable for buses to Newport,’ recalls Chris.  ’ She seemed to take offence and merely asked me who on Earth I thought I was to tell her how to get to Newport.’

Things went from bad to worse for the exasperated IT professional when a digital photo frame slideshow he’d prepared for his grandmother backfired spectacularly.

‘I honestly thought she’d love it. I’d included all her most cherished photos, from childhood, right up until my wedding last year. Instead she just shrugged and said I’ve got boxes of photos in the loft.  What do I need them on a computer for?’

He continued, ‘It’s really dented confidence within the whole industry. We’d just taken Moore’s lesser-known second law for granted; that octogenarians’ awe and disbelief at what we can do nowadays would double every two years. It seems that’s just not the case.  ’The only feedback I got from her at the end of my PC tutorial was ‘disappointment’ that Windows 7 ‘doesn’t come with net curtains’.

Qoxiivi

Pastor Terry Jobs, leader of the Holy Insufferable iPad Outreach Center in Gainesville, insisted that the move was ‘a way to stand up to greyscale eInk displays and 2 GB moviNAND flash storage’. The digital church, which has around fifty members, is notoriously intolerant of what it terms ‘pagan’ operating systems of belief.

But world opinion was against the move, with the Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari warning that the Kindle burning could incite anti-Apple sentiment across the Microsoft world. ‘It is an offence in the eyes of the Linux penguin,’ he said. ‘Their technology may be stylish but we have greater backwards compatibility on our side, insha’android.’

Mr Ward, who works at his local PC World at weekends, said he was ‘gob smacked’ on receiving the letter informing him of his success. ‘It was awesome,’ he told journalists. ‘I knew I’d done something pretty cool, but I didn’t think I had a chance of a Nobel Prize. But, looking back, I suppose it was pretty groundbreaking for a PC World guy to give out correct technical information.’

Mrs Knight said she was delighted. ‘That young man deserves the honour,’ she said. ‘I was a bit dubious when he showed me how to attach the mouse to the computer and, to be quite honest, I didn’t think it would work. But it just shows how wrong you can be. In my opinion, Joe is a genius.’

The store said that since the announcement, it had been inundated with messages from around the world. The manager said: ‘Yesterday Bill Gates called to ask Joe for advice on a problem with Windows 7, then we had Sir Tim Berners-Lee ringing asking for guidance. People have been queuing round the block to ask Joe for advice.

‘Of course, it’s partly down to the thorough training we give all our employees at PC World. We once had a young assistant who showed a customer how to detach a mouse from a computer AND where to find the track pad. Brilliant.’ Mrs Knight said when she arrived home with the mouse she went straight to her computer: ‘I couldn’t actually find anywhere to plug the mouse into my Amstrad, but my grandson has a computer with a hole for mice – and it went in there like a treat. He’s a clever one, that Joseph Ward. A bit of an Einstein, I’d say.’

Nigel Drake, a software analyst with Drayton Mann, said: ‘Honestly, when was the last time you actually downloaded a ‘critical’ update or patch from Microsoft, and it made any difference to anything you were doing? The screen doesn’t change, it doesn’t go any faster, it doesn’t stop getting attacked by viruses, it doesn’t boot up quicker, in fact if anything it gets slower and then your whole screen goes black.’

The updates, which are simultaneously offered to users in 82 countries, are programmed to make their presence known in a variety of annoying ways – as soon as the machine is switched on; before the machine can be switched off or in the case of modern Windows systems as soon as the machine detects the user is engaged in any activity of importance or interest.

‘Windows Updates are not compulsory,’ said a Microsoft spokesperson, ‘and the user has the option of simply switching off the prompts and ignoring them.’ However, Paul Strickland, who recently purchased Microsoft’s new Windows 7 package, said that when he turned off alerts and ignored updates he noticed that events took a sinister turn. ‘At first it was just harmlessly irritating, as usual. I’d get a message saying ‘you’ve turned off alerts’ every time I used the machine. Then when I was working it would randomly flash up ‘hey, you’re missing out on important updates’. A little later the machine began unexpectedly crashing, and I got a message saying ‘you were warned’.

The next day my wife’s car was mysteriously run off the road by a strange black utility vehicle, and I found that all evidence of my existence, bank details, driving licence… had been completely wiped off every database on earth. It might just have been an innocent glitch, but all I know is that when I switched the alerts back on everything returned to normal. So now I consider the endless pop-ups, flashing icons, warning gong sounds or system freezes a small price to pay for my family’s safety.’

Microsoft has turned down all interview requests, and has put the case in the hands of its lawyers, Munro Gibson. A partner at the firm issued a statement on his client’s behalf, which said, ‘While Microsoft regrets that Windows Updates serve no useful purpose other than providing a safety valve for people driven slowly mad by writing endless code, we deny any wrongdoing. We feel it only fair to add that we are aware of where you live and how old is little Katie now, she must be, what, about five years old? They’re so vulnerable at that age.’

‘Not Responding 2009 is a whole new paradigm shift,’ said Ned Holliday, Microsoft’s UK avatar MD. ‘It’s no longer enough to let people down with a simple system crash. Gone are the days of raging at a one dimensional system failure.’ Holliday explained that modern professionals are demanding to be let down in a range of communications media, whether it’s voice over wifi, Skype, web conferencing or just using Microsoft’s plain old instant mortification.

The system is designed to be compatible with Microsoft’s package for small and medium sized businesses, Professional Prevaricator 2008, the automated buck-passing system that allows middle management employees to appear to consider a decision without putting their heads above the parapet. Some critics were worried that Prevaricator’s CC mail platform, that automatically dampens down any dangerous enthusiasm by getting as many people involved as possible, might not work well alongside a system that is designed for instant disappointment.

‘Executives in corporations across the globe are being asked to prove their worth to the company, or walk,’ said a Microsoft spokesman, ‘the risk of exposure is critical. So they’ve never needed a system failure more than now’ he said in a press statement written by hand, after his Word Document had mysteriously wiped itself.