So what if Vista steals all of Mac OS X Tiger’s cool features? By the time Vista comes out, Apple will have already shipped another release of their OS, Leopard, adding yet more features that Microsoft couldn’t hope to have copied in time; without another schedule slip, that is.

More importantly, by the time the next Microsoft operating system after Vista comes out, Apple will have shipped at least 6 more releases of OS X. Extrapolating from Microsoft’s current and past release schedule, one would actually suspect something like 8-10 more years, not just 6. The added features in OS X by that time will relegate Windows to the 99 cent bin at Wal-mart.

I’m pretty surprised that people are getting worked up over Microsoft stealing Apple’s features again. They’ve done it so many times in the past, I can’t believe its news any longer.

What’s ironic is that this is exactly the situation Apple used to find itself in with respect to hardware: twice a decade, Apple would get some hot new hardware that would put it at the top of the performance heap for about 6 months, only to find Intel quickly regain the lead for the next half a decade. Now that this can no longer happen to Apple (since they’ve switched to Intel, making that effect work for them), they are affecting the same half-decade period of decline and obsolescence on MS software by their aggressive release schedules, pertinent and well-implemented new features and ability to get it right for most of their customers. Except that when Microsoft comes out with a new OS, its arguably still worse than what Apple has out at the time (at least lately)…

I tell you what: Microsoft better hope that Apple really doesn’t want retail and whitebox hardware running OS X. If it does/can (legally), that will be the single greatest incentive to dump Windows, and with Google absolutely destroying them on the Internet front, they will be left with only their failing Xbox business to save them.