Twice as much Mac market share by 2011?

In three years, says influential analyst firm Gartner, Apple will double its U.S. and Western Europe market share for desktop computers.Thats one of the key long-term predictions Gartner made a few days ago. (My colleague Naomi Grossman cited another prediction they made about Open Source. Check it out.)

Back to Macs. Gartner said, Apple is challenging its competitors with software integration that provides ease of use and flexibility; continuous and more frequent innovation in hardware and software; and an ecosystem that focuses on interoperability across multiple devices (such as iPod and iMac cross-selling).

As devices like the iPod Touch and iPhone penetrate the enterprise, thats only going to help the Mac.

Meanwhile, yesterday Microsoft released Windows Vista Service Pack 1 to manufacturing  its been in beta since August 2007. Customers will be able to download it in March.

A year after Vista came out, the operating system has yet to get traction. Microsoft has to do a lot of work to make a compelling ROI for Vista in the enterprise. It will be interesting to see if SP1 provides that compelling ROI but nothing Ive seen so far indicates that it will make a difference.