When it comes down to the face-off between Apple and Microsoft, the two companies are involved in a constant operating system "measuring contest", throwing Windows against Mac OS X. With the availability of both Windows Vista and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, a comparison between the two products was nothing short of inevitable. And just leave it to Apple to offer the Vista - Leopard smack down caught on video, well, actually on its very own Get a Mac video ads, delivering a unique insight into the Cupertino-based hardware company's perspective over the two operating systems.

At the bottom of this article, you will be able to find the latest three Get a Mac ads from Apple: PR Lady, Podium and Boxer, all designed to poke a little fun at Microsoft's Windows client. Windows Vista debuted to businesses in November 2006, and to the general public in January 2007. One year after the operating system was released to manufacturing, the perception of Vista is that it failed to deliver on the Wow promise.

But at the same time, after being sacrificed on the iPhone's altar and delayed all the way to October, Leopard has also seen its fair share of criticism, pushing Apple to shovel updates for its latest cat soon after launch. Still, Microsoft too is hard at work to smooth out all the imperfections and the rough edges of Vista with the first service pack planned for early 2008.

One issue that Apple has taken a swing at Microsoft concerned the Vista downgrades. The Redmond company provides downgrade rights to its business customers that buy Vista but instead chooses to continue to run Windows XP until they are ready to move to the new operating system. In this context, although they are using XP, businesses are in fact buying Vista. As a matter of fact, Microsoft has applauded selling in excess of 88 million Vista licenses to its channel partners worldwide, one year after the platform's RTM, although adoption in the corporate environment is extremely slow.

Apple has also boasted excellent market performance with Leopard, revealing that it has sold over 2 million copies of Mac OS X 10.5 in just the first weekend. Additionally, the Cupertino-based hardware company got some good news from Japan, where Leopard is reported to outsell Windows Vista.