Apple Mac resellers preinstalling Boot Camp and Microsoft’s Windows XP

20 years ago

“Several Apple resellers are marketing Intel-based Mac desktops and portables with Windows XP pre-installed, but Apple Computer Inc. reiterated that it has no intention of following their lead. The resellers, which include a small Utah-based company and a major California computer online warehouse, are bundling Windows XP with standard Macintosh models, and pre-installing the Microsoft operating system using the Boot Camp dual-boot application that Apple released earlier this month,” Gregg Keizer reports for TechWeb.com.

“ExperCom is touting a $2,029 MacBook Pro with Windows XP Home pre-loaded; the price is just $35 above the Apple price for the portable. Meanwhile, ClubMac.com, MacMall.com, and OnSale.com — all three part of Torrance, Calif.-based PC Mall — list MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac mini machines with XP Home or XP Professional installed. Windows XP Home bumps up the usual price of the computer by $100, while XP Professional costs an additional $150. Retail prices for Windows XP Home are in the $190-198 range,” Keizer reports. “A sales representative from MacMall told TechWeb that users can select the size of the disk partition assigned to Windows XP during the ordering process… But there are limits to what the resellers will do. “We don’t support Windows XP – and neither does Apple,” ExperCom said on its site.”

“The bundling of Windows with Mac was inevitable, said Joe Wilcox, an analyst with JupiterMedia. But he didn’t think that the trend will become widespread, and doesn’t believe Apple will ever follow suit,” Keizer reports. “It’ll be cold day in hell when Apple sells Windows in its retail stores or online. ‘It’s not in Apple’s interest to promote Windows’ that way, said Wilcox. If Apple did pre-install Windows, it would have to follow the same rules as other OEMs, like Dell and HP, which are required to shoulder the Windows support burden. But the ability to order a machine ready to run both Mac OS X and Windows XP out of the box may be increasingly attractive as the year goes on, Wilcox argued. ‘The sales path is cleared for Apple through 2006. There will be no marketing bang around [Windows] Vista, and Macs are fresh, new, and different. So the people who are tired of the same thing, who want to try something new, but realize that the reality is that Windows is everywhere, they may start thinking about a Mac.'”

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Excellent development! Apple’s “Embrace and extinguish” plan is executing flawlessly. Give them their Windows “insecurity blanket” first. Let them find out for themselves what Mac OS X and Apple’s Mac-only apps like iLife, Safari, etc. are all about. Then, when the time comes to buy their next Mac, they’ll be just like us: they won’t even care if it can run Windows. We are extremely confident that Mac OS 10.4 Tiger will win converts from Windows XP. Heck, for that matter, we’re extremely confident that Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar would win converts from Windows XP. We’ve seen it happen in real life too many times: let someone really use a Mac for a couple of weeks and they simply do not want to go back to Windows.

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