Do you hear that? It’s the sound of inevitability

… it’s the sound of Windows Vista launching. No, that’s not a joke about the general apathy surrounding the most important Windows since the hot topic was “who’s better: Blur or Oasis?”

There’s much debate about what Vista means - is it more secure or will the UAC nags desensitise people so much that they carelessly *OK* any prompt that appears (thereby making it less secure)? - are the additional bells and whistles timely enhancements or is it lip gloss on an old hag? Are the various multimedia apps a shameless rip off of iLife, or an essential response to the demands of today’s user?

MS, just like Apple, has its hardcore supporters and detractors. Reality (read: “the market”) lies between. The Apple camp who see Vista’s lukewarm reception as the beginning of MS’ end are deluded. The business world and most homes have computers that Mac OS X would refuse to run on. The greatest threats to MS are open source software (eg: OpenOffice.org) and Internet services (eg: Google).

It would please me to see Apple regain some market-share through Mac OS X and the so-called “iPod halo effect”. 10%, 20%? Who knows… Maybe that would bring the games developers. In any case, Apple will remain a niche player, and this is how it must be.

This has nothing to do with Mac snobbery - just realism. Apple users rejoice in the Mac’s simplicity, and pour scorn on MS’ uphill battle to rally countless disparate components together and call it a platform. To their credit they do a remarkably good job. Now flip it. Go to the Apple Store. You’ll find two classes of laptop, and three classes of desktop computer. Imagine that this was all the choice there was. Sound appealing?

If Apple became the dominant platform, the aspects that users praise as its key virtues would become its worst crimes. The only way to compete with MS would be to open Mac OS X to run on generic hardware. If they did, any stability advantages would disappear. Apple also consistently prove that they don’t have the manufacturing capacity even to satisfy the demand they have now. Fancy waiting six months for your new computer?

It works to think of the Mac as the Milan catwalk, or the Tokyo concept cars of computing. Ideas filter through to the mainstream, to George at Asda. Windows is a Ford Focus. Vista was never going to roll out to an Apple-style ta-dah: it will be routinely installed on every PC sold from now on. In three years’ time, most users will be on Vista. The ones that matter will anyway - the ones that spend money on such things.

It’s a fait accompli. The most important thing is that it appears to be a significant improvement. I’m looking forward to trying it out.