Recruit!
This will be huge: Apple just announced Boot Camp, which will allow users to run Windows XP on Macs with Intel processors.
I read a sneering comment last week in an IT magazine (referring to an Intel Mac hack available for some time), where the columnist said he had always suspected Mac users had Windows envy. Oh, puh-leeze. I can just see the legions of oppressed Mac users out there, dying to use Windows if only they could. Give me a (expletive deleted) break. If you are using a Mac, it’s because you want to. Sure there may be a closet Windows freak in an all-Mac shop somewhere out there, but they have to be very few and far between.
But this is new, and sanctioned by Apple. In fact, Boot Camp (likely under a different name) is going to be part of the next version of the Mac operating system, due around January. As MacFixit pointed out, this really isn’t for Mac users. Of course many are curious just to see Windows running on their Macs, just to see it. And there are those who need to run Windows occasionally, but don’t want to buy another computer or don’t have room for it. I may be in that group myself, since I need to check web designs under Windows. I used to run Virtual PC on one of my Macs, but I don’t have that machine any more; the lack of Windows access came back to bite me this morning, when a design that worked perfectly on all Mac browsers blew up under IE for Windows for no obvious reason. I am planning to buy a Macbook Pro soon, and that would save the expense of also buying a PC.
This isn’t really about us Mac users, though. Boot Camp, it seems obvious, is for Windows users who are interested in the Mac, whether for the stylish hardware, lack of viruses, excellent media software (if you use iTunes you know what I mean) or whatever, but still need access to Windows. There’s a saying: “Once Mac, never back,” and it’s likely that Apple is betting that if they make owning a Mac easier for Windows users, sales are going to go up like, I don’t know, tulips in April. They may well be right.
Comments
Beyond the reasons you state, here's what makes it really smart, timing wise. It comes a couple of weeks after Microsoft slipped the ship on Windows Vista. Again.
But this time, they screwed the whole 4th quarter hardware sales cycle, and businesses who figured that a new OS on a new computer would make for sure holiday sales. Lots of companies were trying to figure how they'd salvage those sales with Vista not coming out until January (yeah, right).
Right behind that comes Apple with Boot Camp. You want a new computer with a new OS for the holidays? Step right up.
Very smart timing.
However, though I realize this is a milestone (and will be quite useful in the example you cite), it's not going to change the way I do things. I like having both systems running side by side, not one on top of the other. As I joked in a forum, "I can play solitaire on Windows XP while simultaneously listening to 'Fear of a Black Planet' in iTunes on OSX. Do that with yer Boot Camp."
Posted by: Reid | April 7, 2006 10:14 PM
You make some very good points, Reid.
Robert Cringely, tech columnist for PBS, had some interesting takes on the subject in an op-ed for the New York Times. I almost always have significant disagreements with parts of what he says, but he generally has a unique take on things.
Posted by: pat | April 11, 2006 09:14 PM