“It’s hard to believe that [the release of Boot Camp means that] Apple will just roll over and play dead at a time when it’s doing so well – especially as it recently got a public commitment from Microsoft that it would update the Mac version of Microsoft Office for the new Intel Macs and would continue to develop the Office suite for several years to come,” Cliff Joseph writes for Personal Computer World. “It does seem more likely that Boot Camp is a kind of Trojan horse designed to lure PC users over to the Mac camp.”
“Many PC users admire the elegant design of Mac hardware and the eye-catching graphical user interface of OSX, but still hold back from buying a Mac because they are committed to Windows or to specific Windows programs that may not be available on the Mac,” Joseph writes. “The ‘Macs can’t run Windows’ argument is a particular problem for Apple in the corporate market.”
“The Mac version of Microsoft Office is completely compatible with the Windows version of Office, so there’s no real reason business users can’t do their Excel number-crunching on a Mac (apart from the fact that Office for the Mac doesn’t include a version of the Access database),” Joseph writes.
“However, most large organisations simply won’t consider buying Macs because they don’t run Windows,” Joseph writes. “Well, now they do, and removing that all-important obstacle might just allow Apple to get its foot in the door of the 90 per cent of the market that is currently Microsoft’s private stomping ground.”
“Don’t get us wrong – we’re not suggesting that Apple is planning to topple Microsoft or even start courting large corporate clients,” Joseph writes. “Its focus at the moment is very much on the consumer market, where the success of the Ipod is making Apple look very trendy right now.”
“But don’t forget that Apple currently holds less than five per cent of the personal computer market,” Joseph writes. “If it can tempt just one million home users worldwide to swap their old PC for a new Mac – and maybe buy an Ipod at the same time – Apple could double its market share and profits without even having to think about the corporate market.”
Full article, including speculation about virtualization in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and, “Apple is swimming in cash at the moment, so it could buy Parallels out of petty cash; and then – hey presto – buy a Mac and you get two computers for the price of one,” here.
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Related article:
Apple ‘Get a Mac’ web page pushes Parallels Desktop instead of Apple’s own Boot Camp – June 18, 2006
Yeah, the idea of buying up any company which gives you the least bit of competition isn’t new. Sounds alot like what M$ has been doing for years.
The writing is on the wall, Apple is trying to eliminate all objections to buying Macs. They did their research. The megahetz myth: gone. The software compatibility issue: gone.
As soon as Apple eliminates hurdles for developers, this thing is going to take off bigtime.
Apple should be under investigation by the Homeland Security Department, because they are preparing a nuclear bomb to drop on the industry and MS.
I suspect the reason they aren’t buying Parallels is because the final version of Boot Camp isn’t going to require users to choose one OS or another–I think we’ll see something much like Parallels just built right into Leopard.
If this functionality isn’t built into MacOS, then someone ought to buy Parallels before M$ does. Then again, Apple just sat back and allowed M$ to buy VirtualPC from Connectix, and we know what’s happened since then.
“If it can tempt just one million home users worldwide to swap their old PC for a new Mac – and maybe buy an Ipod at the same time – Apple could double its market share”
Apple will sell between 4-5 million Macs this year. How can 1 million more double it’s market share?
Good advice, but they’ve got something better up their sleaves w/ Leopard. Make your money while you can Parallels.
This is just like that IMAX underwater 3-D movie i just saw. This big fish ate the smaller fish which had venemous spines. The big fish was able to add the spines to his own defense.
How was that for random?
just sit tight, 10.5 won’t need Parallesls to run programs for windows XP or earlier. It will all just work nicely in OS X!
I hate text ads.
Parallels and Boot Camp seem like great ideas to attract people to the Mac computer. I’m still not sure it will convince people to stay only with OS X. I’d be concerned about wether or not companies will continue to develop for both OS’s. I think it could go either way.
I’m with Huh? in wondering about this guys math. Is he saying there are only 1 million home mac users right now???? Maybe someone who understands all the ways to discuss market share could elaborate on this for us.
No, Office:Mac apps are not fully compatible with Windows versions. There are many macros that are Windows-only. There’s also font display and library differences that make sharing Word documents less than a seamless experience.
There are many hurdles in making Macs work in the office just like PCs. Office:Mac is just one of the easiest to explain.
There are of course work-arounds for anything that get in the way. A good IT team will have no real problem integrating Macs. You’ll see real benefits almost immediate in job satisfaction and the quality of output.
You just have to get past the incompatibilities first.
I’m a life long mac user, and I was trying to explain to my girl friend why she wants her next computer, which she is about to but, should be a mac. I showed her all of the great features of my macbook and after I stunned her with how great it is, topped it all off by booting into windows, “just in case”. The low price of $1049 for the starting macbook (we’re students) didn’t entice her though. I explained that the macbook is by far the best deal at that performance level, but her argument was that even so, she didn’t need a computer at that performance level. “I’m just going to do word processing and the internet, so why do I need such a great computer”.
I tried to tell her that if she gets an apple, the computer will pretty much never freeze (my powerbook didn’t freeze once before I sold it for a macbook), or become infested with spyware. She said that none of her current computers do that because she has a friend who’s dad is a computer repair man and he can work on them whenever this a problem. I was shocked that having a man come fix your computer didn’t seem like a big deal to her. I’ve never had it done, but I guess if you are used to it you just expect it in the windows world.
I’ve converted countless people to Macs, but they all have had at least some tech interest beforehand. I guess a person who just wants the cheapest computer money can buy for “word processing and the internet”, is a lost cause.
I sure screwed up that first sentence. It should read “which she is about to buy, to be a mac”
It’s just amazing how many people can’t get names right. iPod, Mr. Joseph, not Ipod. Go ahead, go to Apple’s site and see. Go to Wikipedia. Look at the ads on TV. iPod, not Ipod or IPOD or IPoD or anything else you can come up with. (eye-pawed?)
Hey, Face – marry her…quickly. Stupid chicks rock!
I believe Apple is involved with Parallels in some way. They fixed bugs and improved their software way too quickly to be doing it on their own. They must be getting support or help from Apple.
Apple should at least buy a stake in Parallels to prevent it from being bought by M$.
Apple owns Parallels, it’s just not official, yet.
Get her an older PowerBook.
That comment was for Face.
Hey, Face.
On second thought, get RID of her…quickly. Her poor decision-making skills could cost you (big time) in the long run.
Peace.
What an ignorant rant.
1 million new users would NOT double Mac’s Market Share. Wouldn’t even come CLOSE to doubling it.
huh?,
yea the guys on drugs man
macromancer said:
“As soon as Apple eliminates hurdles for developers, this thing is going to take off bigtime.”
Huh? What hurdles?
Developing software on the Mac using the Xcode environment and the Cocoa Frameworks is so much faster than anything available anywhere else. The only developers struggling are those that decided to go the Carbon route and miss out on the all the Cocoa advantages.
My team of developers at work has spent weeks putting together interfaces and controls that I can duplicate in minutes with zero code on my Mac at home (and they are bug free). It took me a while to let go of the C++ I knew so well and make the leap to Objective-C, but now I’m soo glad I did!
Peace,
Kevin
Entrepreneurial Seduction
What this writer doesn’t realize is Apple ALREADY has access to Windows API’s.
They could simply do everything with Mac OS X, no Windows required what so ever to run Windows apps.
Of course M$ would sh*t, or perhaps not.
When people say “Yeah, but it can’t run Windows…” do they really mean that the problem with the Mac is it can’t run Windows or that it can’t run their Windows-only programs?
For 90% of the Windows users out (excluding the “I build ’em” computer geeks) the answer is the latter.
SPJ will set up MWSF by saying the responce to Boot Camp was really good, bla, bla, bla, but he will then explain the problem with Boot Camp, which is having to reboot every time one needs to go from OS X to use Windows, and all over again to get back to OS X.
Once the problem is laid out, the question will be about moving to a solution? How does Apple fix that?
SPJ will explain they think they’ve come up with something pretty incredible, yadda, yadda, yadda, and send forth either:
A. The ability to run Windows Apps (save for things like DirectX games) directly in OS X.
or
B. A virtual environment like that of Parallels built-into the OS for Linux of Windows, etc… to run side by side with OS X.
If the rumors are true, A is the correct answer, but only time will tell.
~Steven