“Who will emerge as the king of the desktop OS jungle: Apple’s Panther or Microsoft’s Longhorn,” ask Mary Jo Foley & Matthew Rothenberg over on Microsoft-Watch.com?
We know, that site’s name causes us to shudder, too. But, that’s what we’re paid to do; we have to read it all from everywhere. But, hey, why not just watch what Apple was doing 3-5 years ago to see where Microsoft will be going today? Wayback Machine, anyone? But, we digress…
The tandem Redmond peepers write, “Sorry, Linux desktop fans: When it comes to desktop operating systems, it’s currently a two-way race between Windows and the Mac OS. While Microsoft’s market share dwarfs Apple’s, the GUI diehards have keep each other busy for nearly two decades – and end users have regularly reaped the benefits of that competition, thanks to upgrades designed to top the competition’s features and performance.”
“This week, the cross-platform debate’s been hot and heavy. Is Microsoft racing to catch up to Panther, the Mac OS X upgrade due to roll out at June’s Worldwide Developers Conference? Should Apple be running scared after Microsoft’s demos of its Longhorn OS at last week’s Windows Hardware Engineering conference,” ask the dynamic duo of monopolist ogling?
In the end, these twin titans of evil viewing get it right, “But based on the timing of the companies’ releases, the real question isn’t whether Longhorn will take the hide off Panther, which sources said is due to ship in September. Instead, it’s whether Longhorn be able to best Cheetah… or whatever feline Apple has in store for 2005. Microsoft last week said on the record that it won’t RTM (release to manufacturing) until 2005. And contrary to rumors circulating as of last year, there won’t be any kind of ‘Shorthorn,’ or interim Windows release, between Windows XP and Longhorn. It’s true that the Longhorn ‘technical preview’ alpha release that Microsoft is expected to distribute at the Professional Developers Conference in October could have some kind of chilling effect on Panther. But let’s face it: Panther will be going head-to-head with XP, not Longhorn. And XP shipped in 2001… until Microsoft lets Longhorn out of the corral, Panther will rule the desktop OS jungle.”
Full article, “Why Panther May Tear Up Longhorn,” here.
True that dawg.
The new quartz-like GUI that is Longhorn’s fame first surfaced with OSX 10.0 in the year A.D. 2001. Not the future Panther 10.3. Though I Think it would be fair to say that Longhorn’s engine has more in common with Quartz Extreme (OSX 10.2 A.D. 2002), than the original 10.0 quartz.
The author poses the question “But based on the timing of the companies’ releases, the real question isn’t whether Longhorn will take the hide off Panther, which sources said is due to ship in September. Instead, it’s whether Longhorn be able to best Cheetah… or whatever feline Apple has in store for 2005”. I would suggest the really real question is whether Longhorn will take the hide off Jaguar 10.2.
Cheetah was the name used for 10.0, so 10.5 will have to be some other animal.
For anyone to “take the hide” off any kind of animal, there would have to some kind of revolutionary advancements made.
How about ‘controversially edge out’?
“Some have found Jaguar ‘edging out’ Longhorn, but other suggest that Longhorn will pull ahead by a nose.”
Of course, Apple *could* come out an eXistenZ-oriented interface, but that’s really unlikely before 2015.
Its not just about the GUI, Windoze is still windoze. Its ugly to the core, not just on the GUI.
This is what Bill Gates will say behind closed doors once they get a gander at Panther; (&^$()&@^ APPLE!!!!! Now we’ll have to delay Longhorn until 2012!
They’ll need the extra time to STEAL innovation from it to include in the their next version.
“The new quartz-like GUI that is Longhorn’s fame first surfaced with OSX 10.0..”
..and it was discussed at the 1989 Windows developers conference.
..lol..
Who at Apple was there spying, huh? I thought one of those girls at the conference looked like Steve Jobs
are you kidding me? microsh|t is so far behind its not even funny. and when panther comes out, they might as well call it quits because its all going to be over.
Why worry what Microsoft can come up with in 2005. Panther will be hot. That’s why it will cost us deniro to play with it. Microsoft is just old news. Funniest thing was the phone hanging on the computer. Get real Bill. Now that’s High Tech. Ha Ha Ha!
1989!! Wow, and the Mac’s were just beginning to have color displays by then. I wonder why it’s taken them 16 years to implement.
Just for the record, I’ve ‘discussed’ real-time ray traced video games with my friends, yet I won’t cry fowl when ID brings them to the market a decade from now.
Smelt said addressing this comment,
(The new quartz-like GUI that is Longhorn’s fame first surfaced with OSX 10.0..)
..and it was discussed at the 1989 Windows developers conference.
That’s because it took Bill that long to realize that he want to do it too, having seen it in 1987 on a NeXT Cube. LOL! Who had the spies?
Mr. Smelt, they’re called facts. Look into it.
BTW, what version of Windows was available in 1989? Win2 or maybe Win386? Did they have advanced GUIs then? Hehehe.
As good as 10.3 promises to be, the OS is only part of the picture. Here’s 5 big ifs
1) IF the new 970 CPU can really close the speed gap; not just on benchmarks, but in real world use.
2) IF 10.3 is stable and fast.
3) IF Apple really delivers on the rumors of a professional office suite, to liberate us from M$.
4) IF the pricepoints are realsitic.
5) IF Apple can bring it off in a timely manner, unlike the 17″PB, with a full force marketing effort.
L-O-O-K O-U-T M$
Two things continue to hurt the small Mac market, Mhtz and the neck and neck race with GUI.
The IBM 970/980 … could ramp up the mhtz enough to give Apple hardware a dominant edge.
If Jobs and Company can continue to innovate, and pull off a leap in GUI, (as they did with the graphic interface when the pc world was still text on a command line) then MS domination in software would have to compete with a hot looking race car with wayout performance.
Jobs’ move to Unix was smart, now we just need to leapfrog MS on the performance side to make up for their numbers.
Nobody wants to be the slowpoke, even if there’s ten million titles on windoze, a lot of people would defect because of performance. All Steve and Co. need to do is Keep On Keeping On With What They’re Doing.
Cee