With the release of Microsoft's Windows Vista edition to roughly coincide with Apple's Mac OS X Leopard in early 2007, PC users will be treated to significant next generation features. The foremost of these will be improved support for full 64-bit processing. While this alone has not caused the level of interest that the move from 16- to 32-bit engendered, the changes will be welcome.

Current 64-bit microprocessors from AMD and Intel will run both 32- and 64-bit applications, strengthening the motivation to migrate as 32-bit applications will run faster on a 64-bit than on a 32-bit microprocessor, so simply upgrading to the latest generation chips will show a gain. However, the Windows XP 64-bit edition lacks support for the .NET Framework, whereas Vista 64-bit editions will support .NET Framework 3.0 (formerly known as WinFX).

The .NET Framework version 3.0 builds on version 2.0 with the addition of: Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Communications Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation, and more. The .NET Framework supports 64-bit applications running on 64-bit Vista editions. These additions are major enhancements: Presentation adds Rich Internet Application capabilities through a new Presentation Foundation engine and framework, whilst Workflow enables developers to build business process systems, and Communications supports a Service Oriented Architecture.

Therefore, Windows Vista lays the foundations for a number of major changes taking place in enterprise IT infrastructure and applications, at the same time giving the option to exploit the latest 64-bit microprocessors in powering these applications. Eventually, all applications will be written to support 64-bit OSs, and the various Vista editions will ship in both 32- and 64-bit modes, so it is a question of how soon vendors and developers at large start writing in the new mode - Vista will certainly accelerate that process.

While the Windows market share dwarfs OS X, Apple continues to sell well to users with multi-media interests and has a loyal user community, and is on par with Linux - although market share statistics tend to be distorted by counts of boxes shipped with some OS, rather than the final OS actually running on the box (an unknowable figure but one likely to bump up the Linux numbers).

The upcoming Leopard edition of Mac OS X will support 64-bit processing, as well as 32-bit applications in native mode. Some aspects of Vista and Leopard are being kept under wraps to avoid copycat behavior (how likely is that for any serious application given the usual lead times to develop and test new applications), but from what have been revealed, there are close similarities.

There will be a welcome for automated backup to external storage devices - called Time Machine on the Mac and File Versioning on Vista - and the capability to run multiple virtual desktops: Spaces on Mac and Virtual Desktop Manager on Vista. However, the Mac's Boot Camp software, which allows users to boot up Mac OS X or another OS, including Vista, will add to the appeal of Mac machines.