“Microsoft said a couple weeks ago [that Windows Vista] would be shipping later than expected and would miss the 2006 Christmas season. There has been lots of speculation about exactly why Microsoft had to make such an expensive decision, and five of those reasons were covered right here two weeks ago. But this time I am ready to lay the definitive reason for this particular Windows Vista delay on Dell Computer,” Robert X. Cringely writes for PBS. “It is easy to forget that Microsoft works mainly through its OEM partners, which include Dell, HP, and many others. If Microsoft announces a date by which some future product is going to be available, they can only do so with the agreement of the OEMs. I know we hear (and I write) a lot about Microsoft beating up its partners, but Bill Gates can’t put new software on a Dell computer without Michael Dell’s permission.”
“According to those familiar with the way Dell qualifies new software, they are very careful about their shipping OS/application sets. They put together new builds every quarter, and test them for a full quarter. This means that to ship something in October it has to be into a build set in July, which means it has to be slotted some time in April. And that’s just for an application. Now imagine what Dell’s test plan looks like for a whole new operating system,” Cringely writes. “Last week, a Microsoft data security guru suggested at a conference that corporate and government users would be wise to come up with automated processes to wipe clean hard drives and reinstall operating systems and applications periodically as a way to deal with malware infestations. What Microsoft is talking about is a utility from SysInternals, a company that makes simply awesome tools. The crying shame of this whole story is that Microsoft has given up on Windows security. They have no internal expertise to solve this problem among their 60,000-plus employees, and they apparently have no interest in looking outside for help. I know any number of experts who could give Microsoft some very good guidance on what is needed to fix and secure Windows. There are very good developers Microsoft could call upon to help them. But no, their answer is to rebuild your system every few days and start over. Will Vista be any better? I don’t think so.”
“Now to Apple and its Boot Camp utility announced this week to allow Intel Mac owners to boot into either OS X 10.4 or Windows XP. Readers (and Wall Street) took this to mean much more than I did, and I like to think I am correct,” Cringely writes. “Boot Camp, itself, is unexciting. So you can boot into Windows or OS X, big deal. You can’t boot into Windows AND OS X. You can’t cut and paste data between the two OS’s or even access the same data, as far as I can see. For this you’d need Virtual PC – a Microsoft product – if only a version existed for the IntelMac platform.”
MacDailyNews Take: You definitely don’t need Virtual PC. Virtual PC is dead. See Parallels releases first virtualization solution for Intel-powered Apple Intel-based Macs for one example of a solution. Others are sure to follow; perhaps even from Apple themselves. Boot Camp will be a different thing altogether when integrated into Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.
Cringely continues,”I doubt that its existence, especially as a beta product, is going to make some Fortune 500 company suddenly sanction the purchase of Macs because they can, with some effort and an extra $100, pretend to be Windows machines.”
MacDailyNews Take: It’s interesting how far off base Cringely is on this: Macs plus Boot Camp aren’t pretending to be Windows machines. They are Windows machines while they are running Windows. While we feel for the poor Mac, and Mac users, that’ve been temporarily dumbed down, this isn’t Virtual PC-like “pretending” we’re talking about here.
Cringely continues, “the only company that truly benefits from Boot Camp is Microsoft, because they’ll get to sell a retail copy of Windows XP for every copy of Boot Camp and retail XP makes Microsoft about three times as much money as the OEM version. Microsoft LOVES Boot Camp and I am sure they’ll say that shortly. After all, Boot Camp sells more copies of Windows without threatening more sophisticated products like Microsoft’s own Virtual PC. One reason why Microsoft isn’t surprised by Boot Camp is because Microsoft has been working with Apple to make sure that Windows Vista runs well on IntelMacs. Apple will support Vista dual boot, though I don’t know if they will become a Vista OEM, but I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t if it will help sales.”
MacDailyNews Take: If Microsoft “LOVES” Boot Camp, then they are suffering from delusions of grandeur: Why would Microsoft want anyone who doesn’t already know to experience the difference between Windows XP and Mac OS X? That’s like a NYC hot dog cart vendor offering taste tests vs. a five-star restaurant’s filet mignon. In the short term Microsoft could sell more copies of Windows XP. In the long run, though, people who’ve tasted the filet aren’t going to want to eat Microsoft’s hot dogs anymore.
Cringely concludes, “I predict that Apple will settle on 64-bit Intel processors ASAP (with FireWire 800 please), and at that time will announce a product similar to Boot Camp to allow OS X to run on bog-standard 32-bit PC hardware, turning the Boot Camp relationship on its head and trying to sell $99 copies of OS X to 100 million or so Windows owners.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Does Apple really have to go that far?
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One thing to keep in mind regarding the responsiveness difference between XP and OS X on the same hardware: OS X is current software made to run on current hardware, and XP is five years old. Of course an OS will feel snappy when it is run on hardware that is five years newer than the hardware it was originally designed to run on. OS 9 would probably be pretty responsive if a new intel Mac could run it, as well. I may be way off here, but let’s see if Vista is as snappy (if it ever gets here).
I have a 2 X 2.5 PM, 2gig, 9800Pro, so I only rarely have a beach ball. It also means the Boot Camp issue is not directly important to me at the moment.
But if there is a perceived, or actual, slowness for less powerful/older Macs, vs. XP, then it could be a problem given the long life span of the average Mac. There is nothing more irritating than a slow computer.
miscrosoft makes around 10 billion a year on windows. that comes from the 180 million oem-versions and a few million boxed versions of windows they sell. aplle will make around 20 billion this year. 10 billion of that from selling mac-hardware. it would be totally stupid to risk that hardware sales just to grab some os-marketshare from microsoft. that means licensing mac os x would be the most sutpid move for apple. they would risk their hardware sales for a tiny chance of winning some software-sales.
I have an MBP and a Dell desktop side by side. Depending on the task I am asking each to do, one might or might not feel snappier than the other. For the most part, my MBP feels quicker than the Dell [an Optiplex GX620 if you care]. Of course, my MBP has 256mb VRAM and 2gb RAM, and it’s a 2.16 dual core, so it ought to be truly quick and superficially quick. In my experience historically, Windoze machines in fact seemed superficially quick, because the system was–as I understood it–focused on that aspect of performance, among others. And typically, I would agree that many legacy Wintel machines seemed faster than many iMacs and PBs for example; though a lot depended on the configuration and the task. But the current crop of IntelMacs seems to me to have obliterated that distinction. My PC in-laws have all gone ga-ga over how fast our Intel iMac is at home. So, everyone can blather on about their personal experience all they want; in the end, it is personal experience, and we all know that no matter the benchmark, all that matters is what the user feels and thinks about the machine in front of them as compared to the last time they used the competitive model.
jay: “what system do you want to run, not which one is faster from now on.”
Guess you don´t use any pro software such as Photoshop or 3D rendering program or video software.
For example, if it take 20 seconds longer for Mac to do something on Photoshop than on Windows then multiply 20 seconds times 100s and 1000s of images and all those 20 seconds add up to lots of wasted time.
Time is money.
Microsoft is delusional if they think that in the LONG-RUN Boot Camp will increase sales of XP/Vista. Boot Camp is the Trojan horse we have all been waiting. Your average PC-using schmoe who switches to the Mac platform will boot into XP/Vista less and less as time goes by.
m$$$ will not sell copies of ruindous because PC home users just pirated it and Mac users will not convert the best machine and OS into the pour one.
Gee, Wally; I bet Apple never thought of that possibility.
miscrosoft makes around 10 billion a year on windows. that comes from the 180 million oem-versions and a few million boxed versions of windows they sell. aplle will make around 20 billion this year. 10 billion of that from selling mac-hardware. it would be totally stupid to risk that hardware sales just to grab some os-marketshare from microsoft. that means licensing mac os x would be the most sutpid move for apple. they would risk their hardware sales for a tiny chance of winning some software-sales.
Yeah right. Moving from the ppc to intel was considered stupid too.
Stimulating users to run Windows on a Mac was unthinkable.
Selling millions of copies of OS X, Final Cut, Logic, Aperture, iWorks, whatever, is stupid on what ground, then?
Apple will sell OS X for PCs in the next 2 years.
You want a cool and quality designed computer to run OS X? You go buy a Mac.
You are a Mac faithfull? You buy a Mac.
You never used a Mac before but would like to run OS X?
You buy a copy of it.
The Mac businness represents now only 40% of Apple total sales…
The Macintosh is dead. Long Live the Macintosh!
As of this week Apple makes the only computers that run both Mac OS X and Windows at native speed. This is a huge value-addition and differentiator from the PC clone market. Why would Apple give up that advantage?
All I know is that I definitely don’t want to eat Microsoft’s hot dogs.
Wooohooo Own Mac & PC really is out to make the last ditch defence of Windows. Shame it will be dead and gone in the next five years…
People like you also said the horse and cart was “snappier, peppier, faster than cars.”
Anyone who is clueless about that (i.e., that means YOU “ppc”) should just check last quarter’s Apple financial report. Apple’s computer related sales still dwarf all of its music/media related sales by a good margin.
Cringley, if anything has a wild imagination, and can really put together some obscure data, and try to have it make sense, and for that it reminds me of science fiction, which I like.
What he doesn’t mention, is that why wouldn’t Apple suddenly make a machine that comes loaded with Windows only? After all they are a hardware co. after all, and people, seeing that windos runs fine on their machines, (even better?) might want the style that is the Mac, and purchase one.
Frankly, it would be an ugly site, and I reallly wouldn’t want to see it. It’s bad enough that you can dual boot.
MDN design
Boot Camp is a BETA release. Leopard will probably allow to switch between the OS X and Windows XP/Vista like you do switch with Front Row to the Media Center.
I think Cringely’s prediction on licensing is wrong. But this does give Apple flexibility for the future. Depending of what happens over the next few years, the option to license is there, even if we think it would be an option of last resort.
Cringley is right!
All you Mac-heads better realize that Apple has changed everything – even if they did not intend to.
There is very little profit in computer hardware anymore – it is a commodity market. This also includes Macs (Apple). [sorry Mac-heads]
The real profit is in software, and operating systems.
Apple, whether Stevie wants to or not, will eventually be forced to license and sell OS X to be installed on PC’s – even dulls. If they don’t, they will lose out on the opportunity to sell millions of copies of OS X. There will be millions of hacked/pirated copies running on those dull pc boxes otherwise.
When Apple does sell OS X to anyone that wants to run it, I predict they will capture 20 to 25 percent of the OS market share in the first year. That’s huge! Too big for Stevie to ignore.
There will still be a market for the Apple-branded boxes, so Apple will not lose that whole side of their business, but Apple will HAVE to cease to be just a ‘hardware company’ or they will slowly sink into the abyss.
Quit drinking the kool-aid and look around…
Before yelling MORON, get your facts right…
“During the quarter, Apple shipped 1.254 million Macs and 14.043 million iPods — a 20 percent year over year growth in Mac shipments and 207 percent year over year growth in iPods. Mac sales represented 41 percent of Apple’s total revenue. Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said that Apple was pleased with the continued sales of Mac sales despite the announced Intel transition. Apple’s music-related sales, including iPods, represented 59 percent of Apple’s quarterly revenue.”
http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/01/18/liveupdate/index.php
There will still be a market for the Apple-branded boxes, so Apple will not lose that whole side of their business, but Apple will HAVE to cease to be just a ‘hardware company’ or they will slowly sink into the abyss.
They already have…
1. They do not depend anymore on Mac sales alone.
2. They produce a lot of software, I mean, a lot.
Licensing OS X to run on dull pcs AND selling Macs to a niche market is the future…
Nobody seems to take this into account …
But in two to three years ‘RAM’ memory prices will slowly but surely go down, and all computers (the ‘laptops’ first) will gradually replace the hard disks with flash memory.
[I believe Apple will bring out a MacBook Pro with no mechanical hard disk late ’06/early ’07.]
Think about this. Computers will boot within a few seconds (as well as being otherwise much faster).
It will be possible to switch from OS to OS in a few seconds.
BUT … only on a Mac. This will be a huge advantage for Apple and their market share will soar.
Apple wont give this advantage away lightly.
Forget licencing OS X to Dell or the others for a long time.