Everybody's talking about the new view. It's been called pretty, it's been called stunning, it's even been called sexy. For the past four years we've heard about the new view on the horizon. Last month the members of the general public were offered the chance to see it firsthand. But is this view really as beautiful as we've been led to believe? I'm speaking, of course, of Microsoft's new view: Vista.

In Spanish the word "vista" loosely translates to "view" but literally translates to appearance. Both translations are appropriate in this case as with the consumer release of Vista last month there has been an outpouring of information, not the least of which have been viewpoints and screenshots. Type Microsoft Vista into Google and the results are staggering.

There are press releases, news stories, reviews, blogs, forums...all devoted to Microsoft's latest operating system. Microsoft, in keeping with the “People Ready” slogan rolled out at a tech buyer event in New York and even put out a five page consumer fact sheet which details the advantages of the system. The fact sheet itself is “People Ready”, touting the novelty of the system using three catchy category headings: The Digital Lifestyle Made Easy, Safer and More Reliable, More Entertaining and Better Connected. The consumer fact sheet is merely one small piece of what can be found on Microsoft's official Vista website .

What is it that makes Vista such a hot topic of conversation? It's an ambitious undertaking, sending the look and capability of the PC system in a very different direction from that which we've previously seen in Windows. This is certainly not going unnoticed by the technology world.

Content providers are pleased with Vista's DRM features. Windows enthusiasts are commenting on the accessibility of this 3-D system; the new sidebar, personal tag system and the tremendously improved sleep performance are some the features most frequently commented upon. The overall consensus is that Vista is visually appealing and intuitive to use.

Admittedly, the Vista operating system is very different from Windows XP or its predecessors and its features show this. The personal tag system is a prime design for a YouTube generation familiar with tagging and its organizational advantages. The new sleep mode allows users to conserve as much energy as the traditional shutdown. An automatic memory dump of all applications allows the computer to suspend all activity as opposed to having things running in the background. Despite the expense of system resources, the 3-D desktop is being called revolutionary and is far more stunning than anything seen on the PC desktop before in a commercially available product.

However, while some of the features are newly available for Windows with Vista, people have been quick to point out that similar features have been readily available in other desktop environments for some time now. Some are arguing that Vista's widgets are a reaction to Mac OS X as are the animated thumbnails in the task bar. The search feature is also surprisingly similar to OS X. Additionally, the Vista sidebar is reminiscent of applets available on many window managers for the X Windows system used on Unix and Unix-like platforms. Beryl, an open source product, offers much of the same eye candy found in Vista.