The Leopard Shall Have its Prey, One Way Or Another 
That is what Phil Schiller is saying. He is of the opinion that the new version of Windows from Microsoft does nothing to shake Apple from its steady sales growth. Instead it will actually help them sell more Macs, thanks to people who will be switching over to Macs from XP instead of going for Windows 7. It does feel a bit counter-intuitive but the reason he gives seems like a plausible explanation.
In a BusinessWeek report, Schiller says that the 8-year old operating system has way too many users and Vista actually made sure that things stayed that way. Now that Windows 7 looks like something that can finally replace XP, people will be forced to upgrade even if it’s simply because XP will no longer be supported and will be left to rot by Microsoft.
Then, people will be faced with the complications of fully migrating to Windows 7. As a result, they will be more prone to thinking that with so many complications involved in the process it is better to just buy a Mac – a machine that is famous because “it just works!”
According to Schiller, no matter how you look at Windows 7 it is still Windows from Microsoft and hence it will never match up to OS X. He compares the adoption rate of XP to Vista and Tiger to Leopard. He says while only 30% of existing XP users upgraded to Vista, Leopard has seen over 70% of existing users upgrading to it. Both OS’ were introduced around the same time.
As for now, the current data is showing good things about Snow Leopard. With the $29 upgrade price, Apple has made sure that almost everyone migrates to the new platform. Apple needed users to upgrade to this better, faster and future-bound platform and hence it made the deal as painless and as easy as possible. Microsoft can’t have it so easy.
That is mainly because the XP machines are so old that they will never be able to run Windows 7 at its full glory. Thus people who want to upgrade will not only pay for the OS but will also have to pay for new hardware to run it. Whatever that is, it is not easy and certainly not painless. Also, it seems like Snow Leopard is actually better than Windows 7.
CNET recently conducted a performance comparison between Snow Leopard and Windows 7. Snow Leopard came out on top in almost all the tests except for 3D rendering and gaming. Overall, Snow Leopard is the faster of the two and I would like to add that it is also the more sophisticated.
One problem with Snow Leopard is the zero visibility of the most important changes. They are all under the hood and the fact that it is still a whole new OS should tell people how much Apple has put inside OS X 10.6. Snow Leopard thus has a lot of latent talent within it, which won’t be exposed till developers start taking advantage of it. Once the major applications start rolling in and people start realizing what lies beneath the plain exterior, there will probably more upgrades in shorter but consistent waves.
In the meantime, there are signs of Apple getting ready to take on Microsoft during the Windows 7 release with a horde of new consumer-friendly and budget-friendly products. There were hints all over Schiller’s words and we have been seeing the signs all around with the Apple rumors pouring in. Looks like Apple has stopped leaking tablet rumors in order to shift the attention to the upcoming refresh for iMacs and other products. The Windows 7 Launch is not too far away, so we will see what Apple does about it pretty soon. [read]
