"This just addresses the reality," added Michael Cherry, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft. "In both cases, we are dealing with companies offering updates to fundamentally mature products. There will be some additions due to new hardware support -- Blu-Ray, for example -- but to a large extent, what is going to matter more and more is security, stability and performance."

But Apple did highlight two differences between Snow Leopard and Windows 7 today: The former will beat the latter to store shelves, and Apple's OS will cost considerably less than Microsoft's.

Although Apple didn't pin the release of Snow Leopard to a specific day in September, if it meets its schedule, Mac OS X 10.6 will appear weeks before Windows 7. Last week, Microsoft announced Windows 7 would .

But does it matter? Cherry didn't think so. "I don't envision that anyone is really saying to themselves: 'I need a new computer, and whoever ships first gets my business,'" he said.

Michael Silver, an analyst at Gartner, agreed. "I don't think Apple beating Microsoft to release by a few weeks matters," he said. "They will both miss back-to-school and one could say that this may even be more important for Apple and thus a bigger miss."