eWeek gives 10 reasons to pick Mountain Lion over Windows 8

An eWeek article postulates that Windows 8 dramatic departure from previous versions might cause some buyers of new computers to switch to a Mac and OS X Mountain Lion. The article by Don Reisinger lists ten reasons why new computer buyers should do so.

Reisinger puts the interface at the top of his list. "Just about everyone who has used Windows 8 so far has complained that the learning curve required to master the operating system is too steep." He argues that it is easier for Windows users to learn Mountain Lion than to learn Windows 8.

Other reasons include better security in Mountain Lion, attractive Apple hardware, and the relatively small number of Windows 8 apps - under 8000 -- compared to the number of OS X applications in Apple's Mac App store. Ironically, in the 1980's and early 1990's, this was given as a reason why Mac OS was so far behind Windows.

Reisinger also points out the studies that have shown that many large businesses will wait until 2014 to begin deploying Windows 8. In fact, Windows XP, first launched in 2001, is still widely used. There still seems to be plenty of other Windows users; Microsoft said it sold 40 million licenses of Windows 8 during its first month, from late October to late November. In 2007, however, Microsoft said it shipped 20 million copies of Windows Vista which was widely seen as a failure.

Mac users can run Windows 8 in a virtual machine using VMware Fusion 5 or Parallels Desktop 8. Are you running Windows 8 in a virtual machine on a Mac? If so, what you think.