Vista now ready

Microsoft officially announced yesterday that Windows Vista was now ready and would be on the shelves on January 30th.
This long expected system shall finally confront itself to the reality of the computer world and will have to prove its qualities. The most difficult part of it will surely be the "pirates" rush, seeking for the recognition of their kind and that will all search for any security leak.
The release of this new system, much closer to Mac OS X than XP is, might be a good thing for the Mac.
- it will require Apple to restart the innovation machine: if it didn't fully stop, it slightly slowed its pace on the most recent versions of Mac OS X, where nothing fundamental changer in the user interface recently.
- many PC users will have to buy a new machine, and if the wind of change is strong, they might also be tempted by the Mac and its OS, which were both in the headline for months.
- as the interface in Vista and Mac OS X will be much more alike, those who'd wish to switch to Mac OS X may find it easier.
On the other hand, no transition is easy and we'll still have to see if PC users will cling with XP or massively want to make the move to another system.
The answers to those questions we won't know before some months.