“When Apple converted its entire product line from PowerPC CPUs to the very same Intel chips used in Windows PCs, the world changed… In very short order after the first Intel-based Macs hit the streets, developers proved that Windows on Macs was more than just a theory — it worked, and it was fast,” Richard Hoffman reports for Computerworld.
Hoffman reports, “Almost immediately, however, the world turned upside down once again. Apple itself released the public beta of a dual-boot enabler, called Boot Camp. With very little fuss or trouble, Boot Camp allowed anyone to load and run Windows on their Intel Mac. The next version of Apple’s operating system, Leopard (OS 10.5), will include the ability to run Windows built in.”
“Macs that run Windows via virtualization are here to stay,” Hoffman reports. “Boot Camp runs Windows (XP and Vista) and Windows software, and it runs them fast, well, and with excellent compatibility. In fact, early tests of Macs running Windows showed that they ran Windows apps faster than did many comparable Windows-only PCs. That’s a huge change from the old emulation days.”
Hoffman reports, “Parallels Desktop for Mac [is] a true virtualizer. This allows users to run Windows within, well, a window on your Mac desktop. Parallels, unlike Boot Camp, can run just about any OS you’d like, from MS-DOS to any flavor of Windows to Linux or Sun’s Solaris, at the very same time as you run your Mac apps… for those needing to run Windows and Mac apps side by side, Parallels is a real breath of fresh air… VMware, has released the beta of a virtualization product for Macs called Fusion. (Read our review of VMware Fusion here.) And now the game gets really interesting… As competition drives innovation, it’s likely that the virtualization options for Macs will keep getting better and better.”
“For now, you can run Windows virtual machines on a Mac, but not Mac virtual machines on a Mac, and certainly not Mac virtual machines on a PC. Although Apple may claim bragging rights for building the most flexible, compatible computers on the planet, pressure will be building fast for virtualization solutions to support running multiple copies of OS X on Macs,” Hoffman reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: On the day that Apple released Boot Camp, April 05, 2006, we wrote in our MacDailyNews Take, “Welcome to ‘Embrace and extinguish,’ Apple-style. The war ain’t over, folks. It never was. Now, a new chapter begins and today’s shot will be heard around the world! Don’t you just love the smell of napalm in the morning? This doesn’t hurt Microsoft (yet), but it absolutely puts Dell, HP, Lenovo, Toshiba, etc. into a world of pain… As Windows-only users buy Macs that will provide them their ‘comfort’ of Windows, they will experience Mac OS X and use it for the excellent Mac-only applications. We all know what happens when people are given the chance to really use Macs for longer than five minutes, they usually want to buy a Mac. These new Apple Mac hardware users will start out using Windows more than Mac OS X and end up using Mac OS X exclusively. Watch and see.”
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