There is a lot of bad blood this year between
Microsoft and Apple. Apple has aggressively launched a negative political-style
marketing campaign against the PC giant. While this advertising blitz - you
know, the "I'm a PC/I'm a Mac" shtick - has been well executed and
very entertaining, it's also had an uneXPected side-effect as well. In short,
it's lit a huge fire under the thousand or so people developing Microsoft's
next operating system, Windows 7, and for the first time in over a decade,
they're properly focused on slapping Apple upside the head. Much like Apple did
with UNIX when the life of the company was on the line for OSX, Microsoft has
taken Vista and made massive changes in the user eXPerience from how easy it is
to use to how reliable it is and how well it integrates with the Web, including
non-Microsoft sites and utilities (like iTunes). Of course, one disadvantage
Microsoft has is that it's talking about most of this during the Professional
Developers Conference (PDC) this week, and clearly Apple will see what was done
and will have a little time to respond. @ Digital Trends @
