I think Apple really blew an opportunity to gain market share.
Many people are in the middle of transitioning from XP to Vista. Many are on the fence and wanted to see the latest offering from Apple. They have been with XP for so long they are getting tired of it and MS kept promising this great OS that was constantly delayed.
The ipod, iphone, and appletv hype pulled in inquisitive buyers.
Apple had the opportunity to either beat Vista to market with a new OS, release at about the same time, or slightly after Vista.
Now people are going to read about the delay and think "Oh no, not this again, I'll just get Vista"
Not only that but Apple may wait on hardware updates until Leopard is ready. For instance, the Octo Mac Pro is needs Leopard for better core affinity control. As it is now, in Tiger, the Octo is a waste of money over the quad. Apple might also need Leopard for other hardware to function better as well.
All in all this is bad for Apple. It sends a bad message to users as well. Apple is telling everyone that they have limited resources, can only do one thing at a time, and OS X is not as important a cog, as a cell phone.
Many people are in the middle of transitioning from XP to Vista. Many are on the fence and wanted to see the latest offering from Apple. They have been with XP for so long they are getting tired of it and MS kept promising this great OS that was constantly delayed.
The ipod, iphone, and appletv hype pulled in inquisitive buyers.
Apple had the opportunity to either beat Vista to market with a new OS, release at about the same time, or slightly after Vista.
Now people are going to read about the delay and think "Oh no, not this again, I'll just get Vista"
Not only that but Apple may wait on hardware updates until Leopard is ready. For instance, the Octo Mac Pro is needs Leopard for better core affinity control. As it is now, in Tiger, the Octo is a waste of money over the quad. Apple might also need Leopard for other hardware to function better as well.
All in all this is bad for Apple. It sends a bad message to users as well. Apple is telling everyone that they have limited resources, can only do one thing at a time, and OS X is not as important a cog, as a cell phone.