Can Apple Take Microsoft in the Battle for the Desktop?

by Marco Chiappetta — Sunday, March 04, 2007, 02:45 PM EDT

Microsoft recently shipped a new version of Windows so its time for some industry analysts to map out the plan for Microsoft's eventual decline and Apple's surge back to predominance after roughly two decades in niche-ville. Interesting reading...

"In 2000, Microsoft Windows was still a poor product, but it had replaced DOS on hundreds of millions of PCs, and was strong competition to the ten year old operating system that Apple was still trying to sell. When Windows 2000 shipped, Apple's efforts to sell Mac OS 9 and its delayed attempts to deliver Mac OS X similarly appeared laughably behind the times. It was Microsoft that wasn't ready when Mac OS X Jaguar was delivered in 2002; it offered many of the key features intended for Microsoft's Longhorn, expected in 2003. Apple then rapidly delivered Panther in 2003, Tiger in 2005, and then moved Tiger to Intel in 2006. Meanwhile, Longhorn hadn't gone anywhere but back to the drawing board."

On a side note, is it just me, or are half of the Mac users you know now running Windows on their Intel powered Macs alongside OSX? Between Parallels and Boot Camp, its now really easy to run both OSes on a single machine. Maybe those Mac / Windows hybrids should count towards either company's marketshare?

Tags: Apple, Microsoft, ATT, App, Desktop, can, OS, MIC, pple, appl, AP, icrosoft, Micro, K

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com