What a difference a little style makes. If you compare the hype surrounding the release of Microsoft’s Windows 7 with that of Apple’s most recent gadget line, you’d think someone had died.

Gartner group is calling the new operating system “all but inevitable.” Sounds kind of like the flu.

Here is a sampling of the words that have been used to describe Windows 7: “much better”; “less prone to unexpected delays”; its impact on PC sales “won’t be huge”; and there are “good things to be had” with the new OS.

Sheesh.

In an opinion piece in Tuesday’s New York Times, Robert Cyran and Una Galani write that “if the key to happiness is low expectations, then Microsoft’s customers and investors have it in spades.” Read more…

Jenny Sweeney Office 2007, Windows 7 Apple, Gartner, key to happiness, New York Times, XP, ZDNet