"If there's a silver lining for Microsoft—assuming my sister is typical—people buying Macs will have trained to add Vista as a second operating system later on; assuming they would ever want to."

Wow, so MSFT can maybe pick up 3% of ww users?

Um. Is that where we're at now with Vista?

"Its rubbish, but at least folks who have bought MacBooks might migrate back in a few years ? "

Ouch.

Personally, I suffered through Vista for 2 months. And after 22 years in IT, I've never had a more frustrating experience. I would question the sanity of anyone thinking of moving from MacOS X to Vista.

Vista ? Three years too little, too late.

My next laptop will be a Macbook.

---* Bill

Regarding copying features,

- If a company is capable enough to provide nice features to 5% of the ppl, another company providing the same features to 95% ppl is doing the right thing for those 95% ppl.

- Eventhough the 5% ppl keep shouting that they already have those features, who cares? M$ doesn't need 99% market share. Those ppl can continue with what they have.

I don't know why ppl are not trying to understand that for Vista the target audiennce is ppl who are using XP or other M$ OS (which is > 90%) and not ppl who are using OS X (~5%).

What do you think Joe about it?

No doubt, Joe, everyone borrows from everybody else so that it's quite possible to cite examples of a Vista implementation of an Apple thingy which originated in NT.

However I would argue the UI we recall will be almost all Mac, since that will *always* have been the more humane implementation.

Macbook Pro user...NEVER going back to Microsoft...

Both Microsoft and Apple are a couple of thieves, but who cares as long as they compete and bring better products to the customer.

There is a lot of great software out there to make either your Windows or Mac OS look sweet and function better. What it comes down to is which platform runs ALL of the software I need to run without sacrificing performance, or forcing me to reboot. Personally for me the answer is Windows XP not Vista which hits performance hard for no real killer feature, or any Mac OS which do not play my games.

Joe, I have to agree with J.B. I have Vista Home Premium on my new Notebook, and needless to say,it doesn't get used very much. XP is just too user friendly for me.

As for it resembling OX X, it reminds me of Ubuntu to a large degree. I'm not trying to start a flame war or anything, but if the other 10% wish to believe they have the better system, so be it. I'll stay where I am thank you...

Lynn

""Paul :
"If there's a silver lining for Microsoft—assuming my sister is typical—people buying Macs will have trained to add Vista as a second operating system later on; assuming they would ever want to."

Wow, so MSFT can maybe pick up 3% of ww users? ""

Apple is now 13% of all new PC sales.........

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=200000146

Even Microsoft can't ignore those figures.

Here is an interesting fact with regards to the MAC operating system.
Since Mac OS X was launched in 2001, there have been four "new versions" of the operating system - Puma, Jaguar, Panther and Tiger - with a fifth, Leopard due imminently.
That's almost one a year, each costing $199 - racking up a total bill of close to $1000 for anyone who's every version.
And they say Windows is expensive !

Apple has effectively introduced the first subscription operating system, and has somehow gotten away with it. If Microsoft did the same thing, Bill Gates would have been before the anti-competition courts quicker than you could say, "isn't $199 a bit steep for a service pack?"

The Mac zealots claim that each new cat really is a new operating system, but that arguement doesn't bear scrutiny. Take Panther (Mac OS X 10.3): the Apple press release hails "more than 150 breakthrough new features", the pick of which are a new finder, a way to see all your open windows at once, and bundled video messaging software. God knows how insignificant the other 147 were.

Neil - I'm a 100% Microsoft user. I own no Macs and have played with Linux but never installed it permanently. I've been a self-employed computer consultant since 1988. So... I am certainly NOT an Apple fanboy! However, I did some quick checking and found that a single user price for OSX is a little over 100.00 (129.00 from Apple) and the 199.00 you quoted is for a family pack which contains 5 licenses. Considering Vista Ultimate is 399.00 for a full version and around 290 for an upgrade, I think Apple compares pretty well with MS on costs.

Matthew Brock
Sorry for the misunderstanding.
The prices I quoted were "Australian Dollars" not American.
As I live in Australia.
Windows Vista Ultimate here in is over $700 for a full install. (Australian Dollars)

Joe; I agree with you, Microsoft OEMs are going to need to do a better job since they are getting killed by the marketing machine that is Apple. Apple is slowly creeping up on them.

It's like that old saying, if you throw a frog in boiling water it will jump out, but if you slowly increase the temperature, the frog will never notice and get boiled alive.

Same is happening with Microsoft OEMs and, by extension, Microsoft themselves.

I used to own a Mac and used them extensively on my job for several years, but my home rigs are Microsoft mostly because of the tablet pc OS, nothing else compares.

If Windows based pc makers are to continue to survive, they really need to recruit some cracker jack industrial designers and turn them lose on creating some better looking products with better names than the Gateway E295C (just announced today).

But where Microsoft is clearly at fault is not doing a better job of marketing their own software beyond "the WOW starts now." MS needs to be on the forefront of the Windows OS marketing (improved tablet functions, Sideshow, et al) instead of saying it is the responsibility of their OEMs.

No. If MS wants to continue to be the market leader then they are going to have to lead.

Otherwise they will find themselves in that 14% market share before too long.

Neil, I have OS X Panther on my two-year-old iMac G5. I skipped Tiger. I'm waiting for Leopard. For most Apple users, there's no need to upgrade to every OS X release, just as there's no need for MS users to upgrade to every Windows release. (I know people who are still using Win98!)

When Leopard comes out, I'll pay $129 CDN. Hardly a strain on my bank account.

Charging $400 CDN for Vista Ultimate is just plain gouging. Shame on MS.

Richard
Just imagine if you had paid $129 (US ... I presume?) and bought each issue it would have been much more than paying for Vista !
Yes ... that's what I was getting at !!
Why oh why did apple need to issue so many if it was that good ??
Simple answer ... the upgrades were not that good and Apple is getting at you.