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The story in Business Week cites anonymous sources within the company who claim HP is considering creating an operating system with a more user-friendly interface than Vista.

The aim is apparently to become less dependent on Microsoft, while at the same time combating the growing influence of Apple and attract the type of customer currently looking at buying a Mac.

HP already has a specialist team in its product labs dedicated to developing the touchscreen interface and software behind its TouchSmart PCs, which have earned <

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positive reviews at PC Pro.

However, Phil McKinney, HP's chief technology officer of Personal Systems Group, claims the company see little advantage in building its own operating system. "Is HP funding a huge R&D team to go off and create an operating system? (That) makes no sense."

Whether it makes sense or not, the story will make grim reading for Microsoft which ships Vista with almost 50 million HP machines each year.

Microsoft has recently been attempting to repair the early damage to Vista's image with a $300 million advertising campaign, which began the Mojave experiments and has now moved on to television adverts.

Find out why Stuart Turton thinks Microsoft is on the right track on the blogs.