Leopard: best OS launch in Apple's history

BEIJING, Dec. 18(Xinhuanet) -- Apple Inc.'s late-October launch of Leopard generated the best first-month results for an operating system upgrade in the company's history, a market research firm said Monday.

According to the data from NPD Group Inc., unit sales of Leopard, formally known as Mac OS X 10.5, were up 20.5 percent over predecessor Tiger's, when both versions' first-month numbers were compared. Leopard's revenue was up even more: 32.8 percent higher than Tiger's.

Just days before Leopard's debut, Chris Swenson, an analyst at NPD Group Inc., wondered whether it could beat the extraordinary performance of Tiger. "It's going to be really hard to top the Tiger launch," he said then. "It was such a successful launch."

Apple, maker of the Macintosh computer, the iPod digital music player and the iPhone smartphone, started selling Leopard on Oct. 25, after a four-month delay due to the company's work on the iPhone.

The new version of Apple's OS X software costs 129 U.S. dollars for a single user and 199 dollars for a "family pack" that can be installed on as many as five computers in a single household.

New features include a file back-up feature called "Time Machine," improvements to e-mail and instant messaging, 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.

While the increases in dollar and unit volume can partially be attributed to going on sale during November -- a key month for consumer shopping -- and the growth in the number of Apple retail stores, NPD said the figures show that Apple has found the right formula for rolling out new versions of Mac operating systems.

Leopard is the sixth version in as many years, a fact the Cupertino, California-based concern is quick to contrast with Microsoft Corp, which went more than five years between new versions of its Windows operating system.

Microsoft's Windows Vista became broadly available early this year and comes in several versions that cost between 100 and 260 dollars, according to the company's Web site.

(Agencies)