Cringley: Apple plans to provide best darned Windows experience anywhere -even better than Microsoft

20 years ago

“One part of last week’s column on Apple’s Boot Camp that slipped past many readers was the idea that Apple would actually start shipping OEM versions of Windows Vista with at least some of its computers. I believe that will be the case and, if so, it is a big deal, and could lead to Apple becoming the biggest vendor of Windows computers to business, which I think is a hoot,” Robert X. Cringely writes for PBS. John Dvorak’s idea “that Apple will drop OS X for Windows [is] not at all what I think will happen. Apple isn’t going to throw away its clearest point of differentiation and greatest technical advantage just to become another Windows OEM. That would make them little better than Sony and Sony can out-manufacture Apple any day. Where Dvorak is wrong is he believes Microsoft’s version of the story — that Apple will abandon OS X, at least for business, replacing it with Windows Vista. After all, isn’t that what this Boot Camp stuff is all about, enabling the choice of OSX or Windows? Not really.”

“The version of Boot Camp that will ship with OS X 10.5 will likely be very different from the version people are playing with today. The actual shipping version, I predict, will have full OS virtualization so that both operating systems can run side-by-side and a user can cut and paste data from one to the other. Apple may have already developed this capability, or maybe they’ll license or buy it from outside. Parallel Workstation 2.1 sure looks nice from Parallels, Inc. Maybe Apple should buy the whole company,” Cringely writes. “If Apple’s intent is to do virtualization, then why bother with this dual boot version of Boot Camp? My best guess is to throw off Microsoft until it is too late.”

“Don’t be surprised, either, to see that OS X 10.5 has a new kernel, finally giving up Mach and a big piece of its NeXTstep heritage. I write this for one thing — because OS X has kernel problems and needs some help, especially with swap space. I say it also because of the departure of Avie Tevanian, Apple’s chief software technology officer, and the guy who hung onto Mach for so long,” Cringely writes. “I have no insider knowledge here, but it isn’t hard to imagine an instance where Avie’s favored position with Steve Jobs was finally undermined by someone pointing out just these problems, so Avie had to go. That’s the way it is with Steve, who sees his people as either part of the solution or part of the problem.”

“So where Dvorak sees an Apple repudiation of OS X for Windows Vista, I see an Apple business strategy that combines OS X and Vista. Nearly all of Apple’s own applications, like iLife and iWork, will still be OS X-only, as will be thousands of native OS X apps, so there will be many opportunities to lure Vista users into the light,” Cringely writes. “Given Microsoft’s difficulties with data security and its long history of troubled OS introductions, there is the very real possibility that the Apple version of Vista will be by far the most stable. For awhile it might be the ONLY stable version. So Apple could, in a way, be Microsoft’s savior.”

Full article here.

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