Ina Fried:

Although they are doing it in different ways, Apple and Microsoft are aiming for a similar goal with their next desktop operating systems: To make the computer more like the phone.

This just isn’t what’s happening. Microsoft is trying to shoehorn one operating system into the desktop and mobile spaces, but that will ultimately fail. They are different platforms and should be treated differently.

What Apple is doing with Mountain Lion is taking some of the more common features on iOS and bringing them to the desktop. However, Apple is not just plunking down features that don’t make sense, they are doing thinking about how users will interact with the apps and features on a mobile OS and a desktop OS.

The common tie is iCloud, which syncs the data.

There is a big difference between what Microsoft and Apple are doing.