It seems that Microsoft and Apple are really battling it out during the next year. Windows Vista has gone gold and even though a lot of features within the OS can be found already within Apple’s Tiger (OS X 10.4) and its iLife suite, it is a huge step for Microsoft.
Apple’s Leopard seems to be building on the success the company has enjoyed with Panther (OS X 10.3) and Tiger (OS X 10.4) with very interesting additions. Spaces, virtual desktops which have been present in KDA and GNOME etc. for years, and Time Machine , which allows you to get back a file in any given version since its creation on your system, are 2 of the big features. Under the hood however Leopard enjoys 64 bit compatibility for newer processors and more visual enhancements.

Microsoft seems to have taken a page out of Apple’s book and transformed the aging Windows Interface into something stunning that creates its beauty by using the graphics card within the system and NOT the main processor.

I made a small table of “features” that are present in both systems to show some severe similarities.

So overall some of the features in both OS’s are pretty much the same but you can get Windows Vista just after the holidays in January with a new PC. Great but with Microsofts history (security and Corporate Image) and with “what you get” with the system, do you REALLY want to just go and wiggle like a dead drone after an OS that was 98% copied from another company?

If you really need a PC in January and you cannot wait till april or so for Leopard, by all means get it but with Microsofts history of bugs I would be somehow skeptical with a “version 1.0″. If you have any counter arguments please let me know, but generally I am not impressed with what Vista will offer compared to what I already can get.

//Flosse

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