CompuWorld

With so many articles published under the same heading, I need to be different to glue you till the end. Right? OKAY then, read on to learn if the WOW factor of Vista and the new advertising campaigns of Mac OS X were actually showing you the real picture.

OS X is facing the lack of support for Macs by different Internet service providers. That is sad but true. A major reaon why Macs still are not covering that bigger market as Microsoft does.

But lets start comparing point by point…

Talking user easiness, one of the most important parts of the battle, it’s a win win situation for both.

Agreed that Vista does not crash very often but the applications that run in it are prone to hang as ever! Why ‘minimize’ ‘maximize’ ‘close’ buttons look identical until you hover over them in OS X? Why one is asked to click ‘Start’ button in Vista when he/she wants to stop using the computer? Why one cannot resize application windows in OS X? What was the need to bring in Flip 3D in Vista when Alt-Tab is the most convenient way to find the right application window? Why in OS X we have to press Apple plus backspace keys to delete files instead of just pressing delete key?

Oh, and where are the OS X games? And why does Front Row feel like the poor, backwards relation of Windows Media Center?

The issue of security gives an edge to Macs with the UNIX amour supporting it. The default setting of an Apple PC is such that it has all its ports “closed”. Printer sharing, remote login, FTP and many such daily use services are switched of by default. This minimizes the vectors available for a hackers to penetrate a Mac.

Vista on the other hand tries to deliver a lot easier interface for its users along with heavy security. But when it comes to making things easy for your customers you have to, by default, leave some loop holes. This is where Vista looses. Microsoft recommends you update its main protective shield every week, but with so many of spywares being released how long would these updates keep you on the safer side. This ofcourse is a debatable topic. Plus you need to find some 3rd party virus protection to keep your heart beating. Vista provides the out of box solution but it isn’t enough for heart patients.

And with more number of people experimenting with Vista than do with Apple, Microsoft is bound to have more number of negatives in there favor.

When it comes to performance OS X initially was no where near its counterparts due to its inbound love for PowerPC processor. But with OS X falling in love “again”, this time with Intel, battle for performance is evenly matched.

Video encoding, image processing, ultimate graphics, mind blowing sounds and many more such points are NOT too different in either of the two.

But lets get to the gaming world. Lets talk about 3rd party applications. Be it games or the most wanted 3rd party tools, companies prefer to first launch there software for Microsoft and than later think about OS X. It’s the reach of Microsoft, or one can say the publicity (negative & positive) of Microsoft, which gives it this advantage. And do not forget Direct X 10 which will ultimately be accepted by everyone in coming future.

The larger user base seems to provide Microsoft an easy edge over Apple this time.

Who is more social? Vista is. It is malleable, easy to get on with and not afraid of trying new things, such as experimenting with new form factors. If it fails, users can seek the advice of almost any nerd in land as everybody knows what makes Microsoft tick.

OS X doesn't mind losing the larger quantity of users. It dose not care if people do not love it, Steve Jobs does and will keep doing that.

OS X has that different touch in it but Vista has fame & the user base, in short, the easy path to success as compared to OS X. It’s simple!