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Actually, if I'm not mistaken, there's another BIG difference: In Windows, Alt+Tab switches among open windows, whereas Cmd+Tab on a Mac switches among open applications.

Either can be good or bad, depending on what you want to do. If you're looking at a dozen Firefox windows and want to switch to Tetris, Cmd+Tab on a Mac will do it very quickly. But you have to Alt+Tab through a lot of open windows on Windows before you get from Firefox to the next application.

On the other hand, when you do want to quickly switch back and forth between two open windows in the same application, Windows' Alt+Tab is very handy, while the Mac's Cmd+Tab won't work. You need to use Exposé on the Mac, or the list of windows under the "Window" item in the program's Menu bar, or the list of windows available from the program's Dock icon. Or, you need to use a different key combination that switches among a program's windows – but that, I believe, is implemented pretty erratically in Mac OS X.

For what it's worth, I see Windows as promoting a workstyle more focused on individual windows, and Mac OS X a workstyle more focused on individual applications. Pifalls for switchers can lurk within!

(Question for all: is Walt Mossberg wrong in saying that Alt+Tab in Windows XP switches among programs? Should that be "among windows"? I don't have XP available at hand, but I think it may be quite wrong.)