Comparing Leopard and Vista

Continuing their strong Leopard coverage, PCWorld now has Vista vs. Leopard: Battle of the new Features on their Web site. Does Microsoft's new Search match Apple's Spotlight? Does Safari set a new browser bar or will Mac users flock to Firefox? Take a look at the comparison and make your own decisions.

I believe Microsoft pushed the Vista Service Pack release into next year to avoid a head to head with Leopard. Vista appeared last January, Leopard appears now, the Vista Service Pack comes out early next year. Notice how blockbuster movies hit the screens only against smaller movies, not against another blockbuster? Going head to head means someone loses, but following and leapfrogging means continued headlines and success.

Rumors are spreading about tweaks to massage Leopard to run on standard PC hardware, not Apple with Intel hardware. Smart money bet this day would come when Apple announced their Intel chip strategy. Apple can tie the operating system to some unique hardware feature of their motherboard and keep this from happening. We'll know in a few weeks if that's the case or not.

If Leopard can be run on PCs, Apple gets the best of both worlds. They see how many PC users might jump if they could overwrite Windows with Mac OS X, without having to officially support the process. No technical support costs, just market research on a massive scale thanks to the hardware and software hobbyist tinkerers. Would you spend the $129 for Mac OS X 10.5, aka Leopard, to test on your own PC hardware? Let me know.

• SMB
• Apple
• Leopard
• Microsoft
• Vista