[The Godfather]

Seems like the PC market is quite resilient to the switch campaign run by Apple for years. With the most shameless anti-Vista ads, our fruity company has secured a two-digit marketshare for the first time. However, it is not close enough to the critical mass needed to pull 3D games, AutoCAD, etc to the OSX realm.

With the advent of Windows 7, a not-shabby-at-all OS for PCs, MS looks like it may dissuade the recently switched back to Windows. After all, the hardware is 60% the cost.

AAPL shareholders, are you watching the competition closely? Praying that MS releases another dud, just like it did in 2007?

[Jawbone54]

I'm not going to give up my OSX, but I've been pretty impressed by everything I've seen from Windows 7 so far.

I've kept up with it mostly at Paul Thurrott's site, and they seem to have finally put some original thought into creating a much better taskbar. Sure, there are some fairly similar aspects that seem to be taken from the Dock, but they've also added some pretty nice features of their own to the concept.

If performance and stability is much improved, I could definitely see it being my alternative, editing machine. On my Mac I use Lightroom and Photoshop, and that's it. I could build a killer Windows desktop for under $1,000. I'm not really wanting a PC, but I don't think I'd mind using one for photo work while using a Mac notebook as my primary machine (email/browsing/calendars/music).

[Big Mac]

Trolling much?

[CharlesS]

It seems from your link that WIndows 7 is fast. However, while that's certainly nice, it doesn't really follow that being fast would make it an "OS X killer", unless there's a large market segment that tends to switch platforms based on performance (and let's face it, OS X has never been the fastest thing out there anyway).

[MacGallant]

If Windows 7 is good, I'll get it for my MacBook. . . The beauty of having a Mac is that you could run any OS really. . .

[Atheist]

If MS can't learn from their Vista mistakes, Apple may actually have a chance at putting a dent in their market share. But then again, Apple has made it abundantly clear their goal is NOT to get OS X into the hands of the majority of computer users. If so, they would unbundle it from the hardware.

[OldManMac]

Originally Posted by Atheist 

But then again, Apple has made it abundantly clear their goal is NOT to get OS X into the hands of the majority of computer users. If so, they would unbundle it from the hardware.

That's what they would like you to think, but don't kid yourself. Apple is a business, not some warm and fuzzy thing to make a select few feel good.

[voodoo]

Mac users miss the good old angst? I don't.

[SpaceMonkey]

Huh? 10 is more than 7, so clearly it can't be. Wake me up when Microsoft gets around to Windows 11.

[seanc]

I'd call Windows 7 a Vista killer - not because it's the next step up but because it's SO MUCH FASTER.

Snow Leopard with Exchange support will definitely be the next step for me - iCal and Address Book integration is what I'm missing right now so I'm still using my Vista machine at work. I'm not paying for Office 2008 and Entourage, I'm quite happy with Open Office 3.0.

I still don't think we'll ever see the end of the torrent of viruses of Windows so there's no winning point for Windows 7 there, but I don't think it would take much social engineering to get a few spread on the OS X platform.

[Atheist]

Originally Posted by OldManMac 

That's what they would like you to think, but don't kid yourself. Apple is a business, not some warm and fuzzy thing to make a select few feel good.

And Apple is making money hand-over-fist with their present business plan (which as I said before, is NOT based around getting OS X into everyone's hands).

[ooninay]

I realize that many people don't buy computers based on the look and feel of the OS, but since discovering OS X about 5 or 6 years ago the aesthetic of the OS has become very important to me. I kind of liked Vista's translucent window frames and the way windows fade in and out, but the clutter of it all--such as busy looking interface elements and the way things seem to keep popping up under your mouse whenever you happen to move it over something--was a real irritant. I haven't tried Win 7 yet but the screenshots I've seen so far seem to continue this tradition of clutter for the most part. I realize this is a very subjective statement so others will certainly disagree. Some people probably like all that feedback, but I find it all distracting. OS X just seems so clean and refined by comparison (to Vista, anyway). And since the Intel switch I find its performance just fine.

[Hawkeye_a]

1. Is Windows 7 an entirely new OS or a patched Vista with some new makeup ?
2. Is it fully featured or will you have to "activate" your copy and download basic mail, calendar, movie and photo editing apps from M$ ?
3. I thought Plug&Play was something that was achieved back when Apple switched to USB (if not earlier). Vista proved otherwise.... will Win7 finally catch upto MacOS9 as far as Plug&Play ?
4. And most importantly, will it be better than Snow Leopard (heck, will it even be as good as Tiger for that matter ?)
5. (Personal Question), Will it have anything original about its design, or will it be like what they did with the Mac's mouse cursor(invert the colors) and Windows Search(positioned diagonally opposite) ?

[Hawkeye_a]

Originally Posted by ooninay 

I realize that many people don't buy computers based on the look and feel of the OS, but since discovering OS X about 5 or 6 years ago the aesthetic of the OS has become very important to me. I kind of liked Vista's translucent window frames and the way windows fade in and out, but the clutter of it all--such as busy looking interface elements and the way things seem to keep popping up under your mouse whenever you happen to move it over something--was a real irritant. I haven't tried Win 7 yet but the screenshots I've seen so far seem to continue this tradition of clutter for the most part. I realize this is a very subjective statement so others will certainly disagree. Some people probably like all that feedback, but I find it all distracting. OS X just seems so clean and refined by comparison (to Vista, anyway). And since the Intel switch I find its performance just fine.

I agree with you regarding the comparison. When i first used Vista my eyes were strained cause the non active windows would go semi-translucent and blurry so my eyes kept trying to refocus... absolutely horrid. There's way too much clutter and inconsistency in the UI. too many notifications, too many things to remember and keep track of. Ultimately i don't need all that information thrown on screen in a ghastly looking UI.

Sorry to veer off topic with the following statement but....
Anyone notice that since Balmer took the reigns of M$ there have been a lot of product 'failures' that's come out of that company..... Vista, XB, XB360 and Zune... even IE is loosing to the browser trinity (FireFox, Safari & Chrome) ? It appears that Apple, Google, Linux, Mozilla, etc are putting up a pretty good fight imo.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a 

Sorry to veer off topic with the following statement but....
Anyone notice that since Balmer took the reigns of M$ there have been a lot of product 'failures' that's come out of that company..... Vista, XB, XB360 and Zune... even IE is loosing to the browser trinity (FireFox, Safari & Chrome) ? It appears that Apple, Google, Linux, Mozilla, etc are putting up a pretty good fight imo.

The latter is true, but I don't think Microsoft's average is any lower than it's been:

Windows was of no interest until v.3.1, and the tablet PC certainly hasn't taken the market by storm. Neither did Microsoft Bob. And Windows ME was a low point in Microsoft's history.

[driven]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

The latter is true, but I don't think Microsoft's average is any lower than it's been:

Windows was of no interest until v.3.1, and the tablet PC certainly hasn't taken the market by storm. Neither did Microsoft Bob. And Windows ME was a low point in Microsoft's history.

I don't know. Windows ME at least left us with an alternative in the form of Windows 2000. One could argue that Win2k based on the NT architecture is where MS wanted us to go anyway.

With Vista we have no MS alternative. I would argue that Vista is a LOWER point for MS than Windows ME was.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a 

Sorry to veer off topic with the following statement but....
Anyone notice that since Balmer took the reigns of M$ there have been a lot of product 'failures' that's come out of that company..... Vista, XB, XB360 and Zune... even IE is loosing to the browser trinity (FireFox, Safari & Chrome) ? It appears that Apple, Google, Linux, Mozilla, etc are putting up a pretty good fight imo.

The Zune and Vista are surely missteps, and IE no longer leads in anything I've found worth thinking about. However, saying that XBox and the 360 are "failures" is way off. How can a product that, while not a money maker itself, generates so freaking much revenue from XBox Live, game licensing and game MAKER licensing, be called a failure? It's almost as much the Gillette model as ink jet printers are: Give away the razor handle, sell the blades for a LOT, rake in the dough.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

From what I have seen so far it is just as ugly as vista with new lipstick on the pig. The improved speed is just getting it back to levels of what XP was and a tad more which isn't that impressive 8 years later.

Snow Leopard is setting up some amazing groundwork for 10.7 which will probably have a new interface. I also bet SL will be faster and more efficient than Windows 7.

All that aside both OS's and Microsoft are becoming less and less important as long as the computer can get online to use web services. MS has to sell OS's to stay afloat, Apple doesn't need to sell Leopard as it is just a means to sell hardware and few people argue that OSX is better, easier and safer.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by seanc 

I'd call Windows 7 a Vista killer - not because it's the next step up but because it's SO MUCH FASTER.

I don't see performance as a reason not to switch to Vista or to switch to Win7. Even $300 desktops (2.5Ghz dual core, 3GB RAM, and discrete, if dated, graphics) breeze through Vista with everything turned on.

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a 

1. Is Windows 7 an entirely new OS or a patched Vista with some new makeup ?
2. Is it fully featured or will you have to "activate" your copy and download basic mail, calendar, movie and photo editing apps from M$ ?
3. I thought Plug&Play was something that was achieved back when Apple switched to USB (if not earlier). Vista proved otherwise.... will Win7 finally catch upto MacOS9 as far as Plug&Play ?
4. And most importantly, will it be better than Snow Leopard (heck, will it even be as good as Tiger for that matter ?)
5. (Personal Question), Will it have anything original about its design, or will it be like what they did with the Mac's mouse cursor(invert the colors) and Windows Search(positioned diagonally opposite) ?

1. Win7 is the continued evolution of the NT platform, including the MinWin core.
2. I think it's fair to assume Win7 will require activation. Microsoft will be separating some apps from the core OS, similar to the OSX/iLife separation. I'd expect most OEMs to ship the Windows Live Essentials (what an awful name) app pack preloaded on new machines, like Apple does with iLife.
3. Huh? Vista supports more hardware out of the box than any version of Mac OS, and Win7 will maintain backward compatibility with Vista drivers for devices that aren't supported out of the box.
4 & 5. Oh, I see it's now time for trolling.

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a 

Anyone notice that since Balmer took the reigns of M$ there have been a lot of product 'failures' that's come out of that company..... Vista, XB, XB360 and Zune...

How has XB360 failed in market or economic terms?

Originally Posted by driven 

With Vista we have no MS alternative. I would argue that Vista is a LOWER point for MS than Windows ME was.

I suppose Windows Server 2008 would be that alternative; it's about as good for consumer desktop usage as Win2k was during the reign of ME.

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

From what I have seen so far it is just as ugly as vista with new lipstick on the pig. The improved speed is just getting it back to levels of what XP was and a tad more which isn't that impressive 8 years later.

Snow Leopard is setting up some amazing groundwork for 10.7 which will probably have a new interface. I also bet SL will be faster and more efficient than Windows 7.

Leopard has yet to catch the performance of XP, and I don't know if Snow Leopard will get us there; the early benchmarks show Win7 will extend the gap a bit, but I don't think people really care about performance that much. It's discussed a lot because it's easy to measure, but compatibility and features drive purchases more from my observation.

[shifuimam]

I don't think anything is going to be an "OS X killer" - people who are all-Mac are die-hard fans and aren't about to switch to Windows. Ever.

Even if Microsoft gave us something that blew OS X out of the water, the fanboyism surrounding Apple is enough to keep the majority of the customers, and Apple knows it. It's a big reason why their current ads appeal more to Mac users than Windows users (especially since they all imply that people who use Windows are boring, fugly, and uncreative). They don't really need to market their products more than they already do. Their biggest cash cow is the iPod family and iTunes, anyhow.

OS X is never going to be a player in the consumer 3D market, for the simple reason that Apple makes it such a huge PITA to make video cards compatible with OS X. Video card manufacturers aren't interested in paying the premium to make their entire product line Apple-certified, so the options for Mac video cards are severely limited, whereas with Windows it's obviously very easy to always have the latest video hardware necessary to play the latest 3D video games. Not only that, but since all but one of Apple's computers have integrated video that can't be upgraded, gamers are far, far less likely to buy their hardware - and the Mac Pro is horrendously overpriced for what it offers.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

OpenCL and the performance and interface improvement for apps is going to be a bigger breakthrough and selling point than silly old Windows 7 which is more typical "me too" features from MS.

Nothing in it makes me impressed or seriously think about it having advantages over OSX. Nothing.

[OldManMac]

Originally Posted by Atheist 

And Apple is making money hand-over-fist with their present business plan (which as I said before, is NOT based around getting OS X into everyone's hands).

Gotcha; so the millions of Macs sold every year come with something besides OS X, and the people who buy the upgrades aren't really putting OS X on their machines. And the people who switch over are really buying Vista machines, but they don't know it.

[Chuckit]

Did you accidentally read some post that wasn't at all related to Atheist's?

Apple execs have explicitly said that there are markets it doesn't want to get into — and thus, obviously, customers it isn't interested in reaching. Apple's goal is to sell profitable hardware, not maximal OS distribution.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

OS X is never going to be a player in the consumer 3D market, for the simple reason that Apple makes it such a huge PITA to make video cards compatible with OS X. Video card manufacturers aren't interested in paying the premium to make their entire product line Apple-certified, so the options for Mac video cards are severely limited, whereas with Windows it's obviously very easy to always have the latest video hardware necessary to play the latest 3D video games.

When the Wintel industry finally comes, kicking and screaming, to embrace EFI the availability of graphics cards for OS X may improve.

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

OpenCL and the performance and interface improvement for apps is going to be a bigger breakthrough and selling point than silly old Windows 7 which is more typical "me too" features from MS.

If you consider OpenCL to be breakthrough (rather than an evolution of nVidia CUDA and AMD Stream which have been running on Windows for over a year), then DirectX 11 Compute (GPGPU support including multi-threaded resource handling) should be considered in the same light. It will be released as a free update in a month (4 Feb 2009), possibly ahead of Snow Leopard, so user adoption will be much higher than OpenCL. Win7 is obviously about UI refinement (look at the build 7000 screenshots) and the beta benchmarks show it to be a performance improvement. So I guess Win7 has all those selling points that Snow Leopard has (GPGPU, UI/performance improvements), plus the backport of GPGPU support to Vista means more users will be able to use it, encouraging more devs to implement it.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by OldManMac 

Gotcha; so the millions of Macs sold every year come with something besides OS X, and the people who buy the upgrades aren't really putting OS X on their machines. And the people who switch over are really buying Vista machines, but they don't know it.

This makes no sense, and wasn't remotely what Atheist was talking about.

Apple has managed to stick around for so long against a huge competitor because of customer loyalty. They've done an excellent job of cultivating a customer base that will continue to come back to them. Once you make the switch to all-Mac, the odds are high that you won't go back...at least not for awhile.

Because Apple charges a markup on hardware and they ensure continued profits on OS sales by releasing frequent (relative to Windows) major updates (and charging for them), they've figured out a successful business model while still remaining a "niche" market, so to speak.

Originally Posted by mduell 

When the Wintel industry finally comes, kicking and screaming, to embrace EFI the availability of graphics cards for OS X may improve.

Doubtful. Apple maintains a chokehold on hardware compatibility. I imagine it costs enough money to certify something as Apple-compatible that hardware manufacturers are disinclined to open up entire product lines to the Apple universe.

However, I don't think that gamers are who Apple's really targeting. People who are hardcore into gaming also generally build their own rigs to sustain such resource-heavy computing. They're certainly not going to be paying a massive premium for a Mac Pro as a base machine, especially since so many expansion options are not compatible with OS X. I don't think gaming is ever going to be a priority for Apple. It doesn't really fit in with their customer model.

[jokell82]

I plan on installing the beta tomorrow. I've gotten used to Vista at work and actually prefer it to XP now.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

I plan on installing the beta tomorrow. I've gotten used to Vista at work and actually prefer it to XP now.

Me too. I was hesitant to switch because of the bad rep Vista's gotten, but I went ahead and installed it on my work laptop (we use Enterprise). Wow, is it ever awesome! I've been very impressed with pretty much everything it has to offer. I'll be upgrading my work desktop eventually, although that'll take awhile since there's a good number of apps I need to install to make the machine usable for my job.

I also have Vista Home Premium on my HTPC in my bedroom. It's awesome.

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Me too. I was hesitant to switch because of the bad rep Vista's gotten, but I went ahead and installed it on my work laptop (we use Enterprise). Wow, is it ever awesome! I've been very impressed with pretty much everything it has to offer. I'll be upgrading my work desktop eventually, although that'll take awhile since there's a good number of apps I need to install to make the machine usable for my job.

I also have Vista Home Premium on my HTPC in my bedroom. It's awesome.

Yeah I know Vista was pretty bad for the first year due to some crappy driver support. But I haven't had any problems since I got my first machine at work 4 months ago.

Although I do have some compatibility issues with my Vista 64 bit machine, but that's the nature of running x64 software on the Windows side. No problems with the 32bit installs.

[waxcrash]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

I plan on installing the beta tomorrow. I've gotten used to Vista at work and actually prefer it to XP now.

Vista grew on me too (after SP1). If you are comfortable with Vista, you'll love Win 7. I have been running it since it was leaked on the torrents. WIn 7 feels like it should be a Vista service pack, but MS decided to call it a new OS for marketing purposes and separate itself from the negative publicity Vista received.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Doubtful. Apple maintains a chokehold on hardware compatibility. I imagine it costs enough money to certify something as Apple-compatible that hardware manufacturers are disinclined to open up entire product lines to the Apple universe.

EFI is an open standard and managed by Intel. This has nothing to do with Apple. When the Wintel market finally catches up, the cards will work with OS X. Again, nothing at all to do with Apple or magic Apple certification. ATI already makes cards that aren't "Apple certified" but work on the Mac. Why? Because they included an EFI ROM.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Doubtful. Apple maintains a chokehold on hardware compatibility. I imagine it costs enough money to certify something as Apple-compatible that hardware manufacturers are disinclined to open up entire product lines to the Apple universe.

Unlike the OpenFirmware era, AFAIK any other EFI compatible card will work. Apple and the graphics card manufacturers do the heavy lifting of writing the drivers, so at worst all the third party manufacturer would have to do it tell OS X to use the existing driver (as the hackintosh community does) if that particular model ID isn't supported.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a 

3. I thought Plug&Play was something that was achieved back when Apple switched to USB (if not earlier). Vista proved otherwise.... will Win7 finally catch upto MacOS9 as far as Plug&Play ?

ADB keyboards and mice were plug and play for the most part - the mouse might be a bit slow until restart, but it worked. Last time I checked, though, PS/2 mice and keyboards have to be plugged in upon startup to work at all, and Windows often tells me that my USB device has been installed and my computer should be restarted to gain full functionality - and this is when using mice, keyboards, and flash drives.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by mduell 

Unlike the OpenFirmware era, AFAIK any other EFI compatible card will work. Apple and the graphics card manufacturers do the heavy lifting of writing the drivers, so at worst all the third party manufacturer would have to do it tell OS X to use the existing driver (as the hackintosh community does) if that particular model ID isn't supported.

The Hackintosh community has done a very good job of showing that most any card will work on OS X if manufacturers would make EFI cards. The driver support is there, they just need to put the ROMs in.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by waxcrash 

Vista grew on me too (after SP1). If you are comfortable with Vista, you'll love Win 7. I have been running it since it was leaked on the torrents. WIn 7 feels like it should be a Vista service pack, but MS decided to call it a new OS for marketing purposes and separate itself from the negative publicity Vista received.

Clever move. Wait another six years and watch your market die, or just declare the next major service pack the new paid upgrade, keep customers, *and* make money off selling people what you should have shipped the last time around...

[Hawkeye_a]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

The Zune and Vista are surely missteps, and IE no longer leads in anything I've found worth thinking about. However, saying that XBox and the 360 are "failures" is way off. How can a product that, while not a money maker itself, generates so freaking much revenue from XBox Live, game licensing and game MAKER licensing, be called a failure? It's almost as much the Gillette model as ink jet printers are: Give away the razor handle, sell the blades for a LOT, rake in the dough.

Regarding the XBox and XBox360 and failure. To the best of my knowledge regarding that business unit, they are still in the red (not turned a profit... overall)..... that's including costs incurred during R&D, being a "loss leader", buying out developers and the RRoD fiasco among others. If on the other hand, the XBox/Console Gaming Division at microsoft have turned a profit(cumulative) since they launched the original XBox my statement regarding Balmer's mismanagement of the entire company would be incorrect.

It is my opinion that Microsoft should stick to Software. They had a one-time-fluke success with Windows because of the deals they struck with PC manufacturers and are riding that diminishing wave. Now inorder to sustain their business model they would require to strike similar deals in other markets they hope to dominate, unfortunately, imo those conditions do not exist today. They tried to sustain themselves by having IE piggy-back on Windows and unfortunately, neither console gaming nor PMPs nor mobile phones can benefit from the success of Windows..... legally anyway. (All my opinion of course)

PS>> You can add tablet PCs and online music stores to my list of Microsoft's recent failures

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a 

Regarding the XBox and XBox360 and failure. To the best of my knowledge regarding that business unit, they are still in the red (not turned a profit... overall)..... that's including costs incurred during R&D, being a "loss leader", buying out developers and the RRoD fiasco among others. If on the other hand, the XBox/Console Gaming Division at microsoft have turned a profit(cumulative) since they launched the original XBox my statement regarding Balmer's mismanagement of the entire company would be incorrect.

They've been turning a profit since the quarter ending in 1/08:
http://www.xbox360fanboy.com/2008/04...-profit-again/

[Hawkeye_a]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

They've been turning a profit since the quarter ending in 1/08:
http://www.xbox360fanboy.com/2008/04...-profit-again/

Correct me if im wrong here, but doesnt that article speak of specific quarter(s) (one being the one during which Halo3 was released) ? Does that account for overall profitibility or just those specific quarters ? And could someone clarify if that factors in the warranty claims as well ?

Cheers

PS>>wouldnt mind continuing this discussing in the Gaming forum, lets not derail this thread as well eh ?

[angelmb]

XP was dubbed an OS X killer.
Vista was dubbed an OS X killer.
Some Cadillac was dubbed a M5 killer.
The PSP was dubbed a DS killer.
The XB360 was dubbed the killer gaming console.
So was the PS3.
Kobe Bryant was dubbed the killer player previously to the NBA '08 Finals.
Your last downloaded app was mostly dubbed as a killer app.
Ironman was dubbed Summer's killer blockbuster.
Then it was that Batman flick.
Then it was Tropic Thunder.
They were right about Wall·e though.


Killer is dead, killed off by overuse, misuse, narrowness, incrementalism and failure to evolve.

It was done in by CEOs, consultants, marketeers, advertisers and business journalists who degraded and devalued the idea by conflating it with change, technology, design, globalization, trendiness, and anything "new."

It was done in by an obsession with measurement, metrics and math and a demand for predictability in an unpredictable world.


Did you notice how I refused to name every damn iPhone killer???

[Dakar V]

Killer post.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by angelmb 

Kobe Bryant was dubbed the killer player previously to the NBA '08 Finals.

Oh, I thought that was O.J.

[Brien]

That's just not right.

[driven]

Originally Posted by mduell 

I suppose Windows Server 2008 would be that alternative; it's about as good for consumer desktop usage as Win2k was during the reign of ME.

That works if you want to pay $599 for a desktop operating system. Windows 2000 at least had a desktop version. I think it was around $199.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by mduell 

I suppose Windows Server 2008 would be that alternative; it's about as good for consumer desktop usage as Win2k was during the reign of ME.

I used to do that, what was wrong with Win2k, it was a good OS? (I've never really played games.)

My parents ran Win2k until they switched to a Mac mini four years ago.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

I used to do that, what was wrong with Win2k, it was a good OS? (I've never really played games.)

Performance (with older hardware that 98/SE would be zippy on), games, and some peripheral support (devices that only had 9x drivers).

[OreoCookie]

I thought the performance was fine, although we did have to pay for a new driver for their all-in-one printer/fax from HP (WTF?).

[jokell82]

So after playing around with it for a few days, it seems like it's just Vista with a new taskbar. Did I miss something?

[OreoCookie]

Well, from what I can tell from the videos published online, Snow Leopard may just look like an iteration of Leopard, too. But for different reasons: MS has to polish Vista whereas Apple apparently has replaced a lot of things under the hood. I hope we find out more today … 

[TomR]

Windows a OSX killer?

ROTFLMAO! No FRIGGIN' WAY! Ever.

Windowsless for 10+ years and LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF IT.

[waxcrash]

Looks like the Win 7 beta will be available to all starting tomorrow.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/p...07CES09PR.mspx

[kylef]

I installed W7 on my server and am very, very impressed with it The similtaries to OSX are quite noticeable in a few aspects.