Daniel Eran Dilger at RoughlyDrafted has neatly torpedoed the Microsoft-promoted market share myth once and for all in a fact-filled and finely-crafted article. Dilger sinks Steve Ballmer's CNBC interview claims about the Zune player's "success" in the market, but let's face it — showing Ballmer up as being amazingly full of crap is not exactly a major revelation to the world. Much more entertaining (in that "oh-my-God-look-at-that-train-wreck" sort of fashion" is Dilger's slow and thorough vivisection of NPD's share numbers, which claimed 10.2% of the market for the Zune in December. Dilger traces each nerve lovingly and watches the ganglia twitch as he takes apart NPD's numbers and shows why Benjamin Disraeli (as famously quoted by Mark Twain) said "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics."

The article promises a followup which will present "a more accurate way to look at markets than consulting heavily massaged market share numbers that jump around erratically in a dance that appears to be performed for the benefit of Microsoft". Given the way market share numbers have been used by Apple detractors for years to erroneously paint the Macintosh as irrelevant, I'll be looking forward to that article almost as much as the imminent shipment of my Apple TV. Meanwhile, your CouchGuy would be promoting Daniel Eran Dilger for sainthood if it were not for the unfortunate requirement that a candidate for that position be, well, deceased. Better we keep Dilger around — he's the smartest, most insightful tech commentator on the web today.

UPDATE: The followup article promised above is up at roughlydrafted.com now, in which Daniel Eran Dilger shows how looking at Installed Base gives a much different view of the Mac vs. PC market than heavily-massaged "Market Share" statistics.