Sales of Apple's Mac OS X Leopard have been mostly solid so far this year. But Microsoft's Vista ... well, that's another story. A PC sales slump, combined with mostly negative reviews have led to disappointing sales of Microsoft's current Windows iteration.
But Microsoft thinks it found the cure to its operating system woes with Windows 7, set to debut Oct. 22 -- just in time for the holiday shopping season. Microsoft says Windows 7 is scaled back and faster than Vista, addressing users' complaints about sluggish speeds and unnecessary functions.
Meanwhile, Apple announced its new operating system, Snow Leopard, can perform some tasks up to 90% faster than the current Leopard OS. Apple said Snow Leopard, which will go on sale in September, is more crash resistant than its predecessor and is 6GB smaller.
What will the new competition mean for the OS sales wars? Probably very little. Last year, 94% of new PCs sold had Windows built in, compared with 3.3% with Mac OS. Gartner's prediction for 2009? Windows: 94.2%, Mac OS: 3.3%.
"Neither of the new OS's is revolutionary [but] Windows 7 is more vital to Microsoft than Snow Leopard is to Apple, because Microsoft has more to prove," said Michael Silver, OS analyst with Gartner.
Microsoft is trying to make it easier to sway users of Windows XP onto the latest version of its operating system.
For some time now, the company has been quietly building a "Windows XP mode" that uses virtualization to allow Windows 7 to easily run applications designed for Windows XP. According to sources familiar with the product, the application compatibility mode is built on the Virtual PC technology that Microsoft acquired in 2003, when it scooped up the assets of Connectix.
By adding the compatibility mode, Microsoft is aiming to address one of the key shortcomings of Windows Vista: its compatibility issues with software designed for Windows XP and earlier versions of the operating system.
Details of the Windows XP mode, previously known as Virtual Windows XP, were first published earlier Friday by the Windows SuperSite blog.
The technology has not been part of the beta version of Windows 7 or previously disclosed by Microsoft, but is expected to be released alongside the upcoming release candidate version. Microsoft said on Friday that it will release it to developers next week and publicly starting May 5.
According to the SuperSite report, written by bloggers Paul Thurrott and Rafael Rivera, the XP mode won't come in the box with Windows 7, but will be made available as a free download for those who buy the professional, enterprise, or "ultimate" versions of Windows 7. The site also has some screenshots of the mode in action.
There had been rumors of a secret user interface, but until Friday, no mention of the XP mode.
"Windows XP Mode is specifically designed to help small businesses move to Windows 7," Microsoft's Scott Woodgate said. "Windows XP Mode provides you with the flexibility to run many older productivity applications on a Windows 7 based PC."
According to the "all you need to do is to install suitable applications directly in Windows XP Mode which is a virtual Windows XP environment running under Windows Virtual PC. The applications will be published to the Windows 7 desktop and then you can run them directly from Windows 7."
Microsoft said it "will be soon releasing the beta of Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate."