Leopard sales best ever for Apple

Apple's latest offering in the arena of operating systems, Leopard has broken all previous sales records.

Apple’s efforts to provide new and innovative things to the people has touched one more landmark as the estimates show that the first month sales for the latest operating system “Leopard” are up by 32.8 percent dollar volume and unit volume up 20.5 percent. These data are on the basis of the comparison made to sales of “Tiger” in its first month.

Apple is the main competitor of Microsoft in the Operating systems market. Recently, Microsoft had also launched its new operating system “Windows Vista”, which has many features similar to the Mac OS 10.4 “Tiger.”

Leopard is the fifth OS in the Mac OS 10 series and its shipping started on October 25 all over the world. Macintosh is considered to be one of the most secure operating systems in the world. Very few worms and viruses have been reported for this OS till now. It has features like keynote presentations and quick search tools which make computing a different experience altogether

The new copy of Leopard costs $129 for a single user and $199 for a "family pack" that can be installed on as many as five computers in a single household. It has no variations in the price range for different versions unlike Microsoft which launched Vista in the price range of $100 and $260 for its versions- Home Basic, Premium, Business and Ultimate.

One of the Brilliant features of Leopard which finds a use in the day to day world is: “Time Machine.” This is a totally new concept in which all the data which one stored on his computer gets stored in an external hard drive and is safe even if one has deleted the data from the computer. The data will only be erased when the hard disk is full.

Some other interesting features which are attracting the customers are: New 3D desktop, Quick Find and the ability to preview documents or files without starting up a separate program, as well as quick access to other computers on a home or an office network.

Leopard is also the first OS which is completely 64 bit operated. This helps in fastening the speed of the data transfer in the system.

While the increases in dollar and unit volume can partially be attributed to going on sale during November, but the main reasons are the holiday season in progress and also the growth in the number of Apple retail stores.

Apple, which also manufactures the iPod digital music player and the iPhone smartphone, had to start selling this OS almost four months earlier but the work on iPhone delayed its release.