One of the more popular debates in recent history is the one over which operating system is the best. Windows is typically seen to be utilitarian and often used by the workforce, while OS X is seen to be more hip, and easier to use. With new versions of both systems released this year, we’ve seen the systems seeming to cross each other, and to many businesses, OS X is looking to be the OS they want to use.

If you’re still on the fence about OS X, here are five advantages of 10.8.

• Centralized notifications – Windows 8 uses tiles and while they look great, they take up a lot of room and can make you miss important notifications. With OS X, all your notifications are in one place – the Notification Center. With Notification Center you can customize what apps will show notifications and even the order of importance. Need to get some work done? Quickly and simply turn off all notifications. When you’re done, turn these back on, and all notifications will pop up.
• AirPlay mirroring – Do you give lots of presentations? If so then you no doubt carry a laptop around with a whole mess of cords. OS X has a feature called AirPlay mirroring which allows you to beam your display on to any HDMI TV, that’s connected to an Apple TV unit. This could be useful if you’re planning to go to an all Mac environment. No messing with cables, just bring the laptop, press a button and away you go.
• iCloud for easy sync – If you use any of Apple’s other devices, you can sync information and files across all Apple devices using iCloud. This is a great feature as you won’t have to worry about which device has what file. If it’s on iCloud, it can be accessed by any Apple device that is compatible with iCloud – pretty much any modern Apple product.
• Don’t type it, speak it – If you have your hands full, and need to take notes, or even draft a letter you can use your voice. In any place you can type, hitting the Function key twice will bring up the Speak to Type option. From there, speak and the words will show up, normally with correct punctuation.
• Integrated Messaging – One of the more popular categories of apps on smartphones are those related to chat. iMessages for the iPhone is great, you can send texts for free to any user. It’s not great when you are at work and your phone keeps buzzing, annoying colleagues. Messages is an app for OS X that takes all the popular chat programs like iMessages, Google Talk, Yahoo!, etc. and combines them into one app. The cool thing about this is that you can text people on their iPhones, and vice-versa. This makes chatting more convenient.

These are just a few of the great features Mountain Lion offers that users will find make the OS a completely different, and arguably better, experience over Windows. If you’re interested in switching over to Apple, please let us know, we may have a solution for you.