“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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Related articles:
Cringely predicts Apple Boot Camp for non-Apple PCs to allow Mac OS X to run on generic x86 boxes – April 07, 2006
Dvorak: Will Apple ditch Mac OS X for Microsoft’s Windows? – February 16, 2006
xcntric, I have some bad news for you.
Even if MS did release their own upside down, backward version of Boot Camp, it CANNOT legally run OS X.
So short story is no Dull or HP or Sony boxes running OS X.
So the choice is either an ultra-ugly, ultra-cheap crap box from Dull (and you get what you pay for) running Windows or Linux only, or a beautifully engineered Mac stocked to the gills with every technology you could ever want, running anything including Visa (if it ever sees the light of day) you like as well as or within the vastly superior OS X.
Hmmm, seems a no brainer to me.
Hey, ©,
Good thing I wasn’t drinking anything when I played that startup sound, or it’d have gotten all over my keyboard!
Thanks for a great chuckle
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Infomercials – there’s a great site on the ‘net called Google. It’s quite clever – if you type “kernel panic” into the little box at the top, you get a page of links back, and the very first one tells you all about kernel panics on MacOS. To make things even easier for you, click on http://www.macmaps.com/kernelpanic.html.
Windows never gets virus infected, it is a virus!
MS should make a version of Windows for Apple, then give their money back to the shareholders and close down
random troll:
Don’t be silly, Microsoft makes a perfectly good set top game system.
All these are not true
thanks for clearing that up
“Some people make things happen. Some people watch what happens. Some people say, ‘Hey, what the hell just happened.'” Apple makes things happen. We readers of MDN watch what happens. Microsoft…
Mach has problems with swap space? That’s news to me. ‘Course, I’ve still got 21 GB available on good ol Macintosh HD thanks to a 400 GB external drive from OWC.
And as kernel panics go… I’ve had maybe 5 or 6 in 4 years, and three of those happened in 1 day due to a reproducible bug in smb.kext trying to connect to an improperly configured Windows file share. (This was 10.2 I think). Hardly what I call a stability problem.
The spinning beach ball may or may not be a problem with the kernel design. The relevant questions are: 1) How good is kernel support for threading and asynchronous IO? 2) How well is that support exposed via various APIs (POSIX, Carbon, Cocoa)? 3) How well does the Finder or any other app take advantage of the available APIs for threading and asynchronous IO?
The issue could be at any of these layers, only 1 of which is really the kernel.
Ironically, I was ACTUALLY thinking Apple would develop a UI for the Windows usage on the Mac..
…what Kevin Rose referred to as the ‘executive layer’
Why?
So that even if you never wanted to use OS X.. you would STILL consider getting Mac hardware.. to get access to the ‘better version of Windows’ available only.. with Mac hardware..
In other words.. the very same slick GUI that Dvorak thought would REPLACE OS X.. would be an option..
Here´s my five cents on what Apple wants to achieve by launching Boot Camp…
One quite common theory is that Apple wants to lure Windows users to buy a Mac that can run both XP and OSX and by experiencing how superior OSX is make them permanent switchers. This implies that it´s Microsoft Apples going after. I think that´s wrong. Apples going after Dell and HP !….
Read more on my blog : http://www.geirwerner.squarespace.com/
Regarding the possibility that Apple MAY change from a Mach kernel to some other kernel — keep in mind that virtualization runs best UNDERNEATH the overlying operating system — a micro-kernel that controls virutalization UNDERNEATH an OS kernel, if you will.
Now that Avie is out, the question becomes one of whether Apple will continue to utilze the Mach (Avie’s baby from his Carnegie-Mellon days) quasi-micro-kernel, or go with something fresh . . . something that can handle low-level virtualization tasks competently . . .
And, then there are the Be OS folks that Apple hired a few years back . . . hmmmmm — a Be OS-like BSD kernel with a micro-kernel running underneath it all to properly control the simultaneous virtualized instances of multiple operating systems — hmmmmmmm . . .
Microsoft won the first battle for the desktop. That was about 13 years ago. The war is not with Microsoft. Increasing market share does not involve Microsoft at all. It involves other PC makers. The war is with Dell and HP etc. This is the only way to erode “Windows” market share.