Recent information development and Windows Vista issue might cause users to shift to Mac OS X. It’s not just a guess, Microsoft’s Vista pose obstacles to user friendliness and not to mention economical aspects ties with this upgrade. Microsoft’s Vista indeed have the quality to be the next generation OS, but from the consumer’s perspective it will be nothing but a big expansive commodities. Remember consumer means I am referring to general user’s not business or enterprise users.

You will get the picture if I explain it step by step. Microsoft is bringing out Vista and Apple bringing Mac OSX Leopard, almost same time. So let’s see the comparisons:

System requirements:

Leopard: An Intel processor with at least 700 GHz speed
Or a PowerPC G4 or G5 processor; that means you can run it in both PC and Mac. 256 MB RAM.
Vista: 1 GHz Intel class processor speed, 1 GB RAM, internet accessible, 128 graphics memory etc. Vista compatible PC is almost high end of today’s PC.

Cost:

Leopard: Speculated price for Leopard would be just the same like its predecessor US$129/single user, US$199/family pack. As long as you wish to use, the product supports are as long as you use. Upgrade means you by another higher version CD when available and upgrade if you only wish, not compulsory.
Vista: The prices are already announced. Vista home basic-US$199 (upgrade US$99.95), Home premium-US$239 (upgrade US$159), Business-US$299 (upgrade US$199), Ultimate-US$399 (upgrade US$259). Not all version have all the features, especially the home basic is just nothing more than XP SP2. In order to eligible for upgrade you must be running a license copy of Windows XP or 2000. Other does have to buy new copies. Support for Windows Vista will be abandon after 5 years (2012). In between if other upgrade launched you have to switch to that.

Re-install:

Leopard: If you are using single user version, when you transfer to other computer you have to uninstall the older one; as many times as you want. The family pack is same but have to be maximum can run on five computer at a time in a single household.
Vista: No matter what you do, you can only reinstall/move your windows vista maximum two times. If more than that, you have to pay additional costs.

Both of the OS have serious slick graphical interface, 64bit compatibilities, and high user security. In addition Leopard will have cross platform compatibility and Vista will have IE7; well you can always use Firefox: P

Now look at the situation if a user have to use Vista they have upgrade their PC/laptop to make it vista compatible (most of them) with requires bucks. Let’s say minimum a US$250 then upgrade to Home Premium (since Home basic is nothing just a new shell) US$159 total US$409 is the cost without considering Microsoft’s inevitable upgrade cost within a year or so (they always do that). On the other hand if a user have to switch to Leopard they don’t need any hardware upgrade (at least 60% of them), even if some do that won’t be more than US$100 and the Leopard cost US$129. So in total the cost for leopard would be under US$250, almost half of vista. Needless to say no threat for compulsory forceful upgrade.

So finally you can see Vista means buying almost another computer plus the OS, and Leopard means just the OS. So why user should will pick Vista over leopard, and give me five good reasons why they shouldn’t switch to Mac OS X (Safer, reliable, clean looks, faster, cheaper). I couldn’t find any honestly.

[tags]windows vista, Mac OS X leopard, MAC OS, OS X, upgrade, switch, cost, Intel [/tags]