we'll see how things go.
remember, you can't compare Panther and Longhorn.
Longhorn is *a couple of months* away from beta. At that point, honestly, you're seeing the final feature set. Bugs haven't been worked out, the details aren't complete. It'll look slightly different, be faster, and less bug riddled when it's released, but typically even by Beta 1, MS's stuff is *nearly done* featurewise. More stuff is gonna disappear than will be added.
So, when Beta 1 comes out, we'll see what it's gonna do.
We won't be able to compare Mac OS X with it until the release that comes out the same year. That'll be 10.4 or 10.5, depending on what year LH hits, and when in the year.
If it comes in '05, then 10.4 will be the current iteration, if it comes in 06, at the end of the year, it'll have to deal with 10.5.
Apple has been pretty consistent, delivering an OS X refresh every 1 year... that is, they're doing what MS said they'd do... but haven't. Wow... sucks to be MS.