One of the most telling jokes during the presentation of Leopard at Apple’s WWDC was that it was $129 for the “Basic” version and $129 for the “Ultimate” version. In stark contrast to Microsoft’s confusing lineup of Vista choices, Apple stayed with the program. One “client” version and one “server” version, basically. Yes, there’s a Leopard family pack that lets you legally install it on up to five Macs, but the software is the same, and the limited and unlimited versions of Leopard Server don’t scrimp on features either.

The reason Apple lampoons Microsoft is because Windows Vista’s marketing plan, such as it is, confuses almost everyone, including the company’s own product managers. As we speak, there’s a flap over a legal action folks have initiated against Microsoft charging deceitful tactics.

At issue is the “Vista Capable” branding label that appeared on many cheap PCs before Vista was released.

Only thing is, by “capable,” Microsoft means that the box in question can only run the “Basic” version of Vista, which lacks the fancy 3D Aero interface, scheduled backup capability, and various and sundry multimedia features when compared to the higher-end consumer version, dubbed Home Premium.

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First-time Web developers are probably surprised to learn all the silliness that you have to endure in order to get anything more more than the simplest site to look good in the various browsers. Sometimes it can become a total nightmare, where one browser makes everything look perfect, while another messes up tables and text and pictures overlap or aren’t even there.

Worse, fixing one problem, creates yet another in the original browser. It’s a vicious circle, and one that I have confronted often. In fact, when our original Webmaster, Brent Lee, updated all our sites last year, he often had to write separate code strictly to accommodate the eccentricities of Internet Explorer. You see, Microsoft has its own bright ideas on how Web standards ought to be implemented, and they don’t always follow the rest of the industry. In a sense, they want you to accept to their point of view, rather than the other way around.

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I suppose Windows users who are offended or simply tired of the overwrought Aero interface are happy they can turn it off. Or never see it, because their PC hardware isn’t powerful enough to render the full, unfettered graphical display. Perhaps they even got a Home Basic edition, which is free of special visual effects, even as an option.

Yet there’s actually a class-action lawsuit brewing where some folks claim, in their legal documents, that Microsoft deliberately misled them into believing they had a PC that supported all of the key features of Vista, only to discover that the graphics were crippled. Maybe they were lucky, but they evidently believe otherwise, or perhaps their attorneys just hope for a huge payday and don’t really care.

To be sure, Microsoft is late to the eye-candy party. Apple delivered first, way back in 2001 with the first official release of Mac OS X. In fact, they got roundly criticized for their excesses, but managed to tone down the most irritating visual artifacts, at least to some of you.

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Let’s take a trip back through time, to the 1990s, where the words “Apple” and “beleaguered” were usually described in the same sentence, rarely more than a few words apart. I suppose you could say that there was a death watch too, with lots and lots of publications waiting for Apple to bite the big one, or just go bankrupt and get swallowed up by another company. In a few years, the name would remain, but everything else would be history.

Of course, it didn’t turn out that way, although Apple came mighty close to the precipice for a while, as it began to hemorrhage money in the mid-1990s. This all happened before they succumbed to the famous Steve Jobs sales pitch (notice I didn’t say “reality distortion field,” but you get the idea) and bought NeXT.

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