So, tonight at midnight Microsoft Windows Vista is finally available for retail sale and although there’s been a whole lot of buzz about this release, it’s not all been good for Microsoft.

One reason there’s been some negative backlash about this release is because it took so long to come out. It’s now been almost 6 years in the making and more and more media reports are taking the stance that although there are some major enhancements in the new OS, there are just simply too many similarities to Apple’s Mac OS X. Apple in the meantime has released many full version upgrades in the same amount of time and also plans to launch Mac OS 10.5 Leopard in the spring which has some killer enhancements.

Here are just a few of the similiarities some experts have pointed out…

Gadgets
Vista will let you summon, at the right edge of the screen, Gadgets: single-purpose, single-window little programs. One’s an egg timer, one’s a news ticker, and so on. It’s a lot like the Dashboard in Mac OS X which are called Widgets (or the shareware Konfabulator that came before it), except that apparently, you can’t put the widgets anywhere on the screen you like in OS X.

3-D Application Switcher
With a keystroke, Vista can present you with a stacked deck of every window that’s open on your machine, making it easier to hunt through them for one particular window. It’s a lot like the Exposé feature in Mac OS X, except that you don’t get to see all of the windows simultaneously; you have to walk through them one at a time with the mouse or keyboard.

Global Fast Search
Vista can now find words in any of your files, quickly and easily, just like the Spotlight feature of Mac OS X accept instead of having the search in the top right corner like in OS X, Microsoft got real innovative and put it in the bottom left corner.

Photo Organization
Some limited photo editing is now built into Vista’s photo browser, which couldn’t look more like Apple’s iPhoto program if you ran it through a copying machine.

These are just a few of the similarities and although all companies are forced to copy competitors to simply keep up with what user’s like… Microsoft even went as far as copying the design, layout and colors of a lot of apps.

Microsoft even was discovered sending a number of Mac envy emails during the development of Vista which have now been made public.

While I think Vista will probably be a success (since so many businesses are so used to Windows), I think you’ll now start seeing a true conversion from many home windows users to Mac. Apple’s products tend to me more user friendly and although their products are a little more expensive compared to cheap, lower end PC’s available at Best Buy, Circuit City and Walmart, they tend to be easier to use (although with less control) out of the box and also come standard with many every day applications such as the ones used in iLife.

This will also be even more true now that another one of the major complaints about the new Windows Vista OS is that it’s a resource hog and will only run properly on the most up to date computers using at least 1GB of ram, a higer end graphics card, more hard drive space and many new drivers. This leads me to believe that most users will end up having to get a new computer instead of being able to simply upgrade the OS.

Although Apple currently only holds a small overall market share as far as PC’s, Apple has gained in market share over the last 3 or 4 years and under my estimation will only continue to grow.

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see once Vista has been analyzed more and given some time to work out the bugs, but I’ll stick with Apple as I feel they have more of a sense of what the typical user wants in a finely polished package that just simply works.

If you are however going to give Windows Vista a try, here is a step by step guide of everything you need to know about upgrading to Windows Vista.

Once you’re ready to buy or upgrade your PC to Windows Vista simply choose the version that’s right for you and buy.

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic, Full Version

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic, Upgrade

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium, Upgrade

Microsoft Windows Vista Business, Full Version

Microsoft Windows Vista Business, Upgrade

Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade, Limited Signature Edition

Or simply buy a Mac and run the most advanced and secure operating system in the world. Plus, you can now run also Windows on a Mac. Why not have the best of both world’s?

iMac 17-inch 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

Here are some video’s I came across that also point out some of the similarities between Vista and OS X.

Bill Gates Interview on NBC Today Show

Windows Copies OS X – Apple Keynote Address

Windows Vista did not steal ideas from Mac OS X

The Real Windows Vista