Discuss this column in our forum.

While Steve Jobs and Bill Gates may both say the desktop wars are over, don't try telling that to the legions of Windows and Mac partisans hanging around the Web.

Kindled by these advocates' smoldering passions, our recent column on the prospects of Apple's and Microsoft's next major OS revs had the effect of tossing a kitchen match on a pile of oily rags.

Since the resulting flare-up seems to have generated more heat than light on some message boards focused on the companies' platform prospects, we thought it was worth restating our basic premise: If both companies accomplish most of the competitive feats they're contemplating for their next major OS upgrades, Mac OS X will be running a couple of years ahead of Windows by next fall.

Specifically, some readers took issue with what they described as an apples-and-oranges comparison between the Panther version of Mac OS X (a k a Version 10.3 and due to reach developers in June and end users this fall) and the Longhorn upgrade to Windows (which won't ship until 2005). But that's precisely the point: If Apple sticks to a yearly cycle of product updates between now and 2005, it will be going on Mac OS X 10.5 by the time Longhorn delivers GUI enhancements and other features designed to take on Mac OS X 10.2. Even if Redmond comes through with all of the capabilities it's predicting, it will still be choking on dust kicked up by an additional couple of Mac OS X revs.

The other major argument we encountered—especially from Mac boosters—was the contention that we'd somehow underestimated the capabilities of Mac OS X when enumerating areas where Apple is seeking to match Windows XP.

To clarify, the performance and feature enhancements we listed for Panther derive from reports of Apple's own competitive analysis of XP. Apple may be aggressive at marketing its platform advantages, but (unlike some of its most zealous fans) it's also willing to take a long, hard look at places where it may need to try harder. The company has concluded that those areas include GUI responsiveness as well as launch, boot and log-in times; easier access to multiple desktops; the ability to create portable profiles; help-system features that can be extended by third parties; and transparent, file system-level compression and encryption.

Laying those issues aside, some readers weighed in with a fresh take on the subject. Consider the colorful scenario laid out by Ed Crelin, president and CEO of MacInsight, a Mac-o-philic computer consultancy: "When Longhorn ships, in fourth quarter 2006, it will probably be facing a Sabertooth with another three years of tweaks and open source support. I pray Longhorn will end up naught but a fine filet.

"Yes, Apple has a bit of a list to work on, but how much is already underway? Panther is probably nearing the end of its alpha already. Lots of red-eyed propellerheads in secret rooms in Cupertino are still cranking 24/7. The speed issue is paramount; better universal client capabilities are needed here (read Win2003 client); Safari (or IE on the Mac) must be fully compatible with all the current WinIE-specific commerce/financial stuff on the web. Is Windows' Java-killer going to be semi-open source enough to incorporate or a why-bother? I fully expect much of this in Panther. (Am I dreaming? When has Apple hit it all on the head?)

"Being a Mac guy is starting to be fun again; my back is ready to heal after so many years of Druid-like self-flagellation!"

"Good article (I mean it) but OS wars are a token of the past," writes Francisco J. Bido.

"What you discuss are just the motion blurs of a competitive market that is not really as naive as it was. From a big-picture perspective, the importance of an OS is not a one-to-one feature comparison. After all, OS features are just a bunch of zeros and ones, and it's just a matter of time before they converge to practically the same things or are copied tit-for-tat.

"Nowadays, Mac OS X can expand and do anything that Windows can, and the opposite is bluntly true; these new superpowers were just a pipedream with the classic Mac OS. Linux can also do this, except that it doesn't benefit from the forces of full-fledged capitalism. Hence, it will always have an uphill battle on the desktop terrain—just sucking its thumb and dragging its blanket.

"More important than tit-for-tat feature wars is how OSes are licensed and what markets they serve. MS still serves the same markets (which is everything), but Apple is not just a desktop OS as it used to be. It has well-received server-side personality, it's now a developer's platform, and it also fully leverages and extends its Unix heritage. On top of all that, it credibly plays ball with the open-source movement. This is huge and is a much more credible threat to Windows than any future bells and whistles in Panther.

That's what really matters, in this sense Apple has made much-needed progress; MS has nowhere to go but down. Nothing against them; it's just that the top is a very lonely place to be. Gravity doesn't help, either."

Do you think Microsoft is sliding downhill? Could Apple ever be king of the mountain? Drop us a line at mswatch@ziffdavis.com and state your case!

Discuss this column in our forum.