“Why is virtualisation important? Because it has the potential to make operating systems irrelevant. This is, as you might expect, of some interest to Microsoft, which has gone out of its way in recent months to put its own spin on virtualisation,” Graeme Philipson reports for The Sydney Morning Herald.
“Operating systems are a vital component of modern computer systems. The operating system is the interface with the hardware – without them every application would have to include its own code for writing to and retrieving from disk drives, for printing, and for the many other housekeeping tasks we all take for granted,” Philipson reports.
“The hullabaloo surrounding Microsoft’s Vista, the messianic faith with which Macintosh addicts and Linux lovers defend their operating systems, the battle over the different flavours of Unix – all are testament to the power and the importance of the operating system. It is the operating system, more than anything, that defines a computer architecture,” Philipson reports. “Virtualisation shifts the paradigm.”
“It is virtualisation that allows people to run Windows applications on an Apple Macintosh,” Philipson reports.
“Microsoft is adopting a two-pronged strategy to try to head off the threat of virtualisation. It is belittling the latest virtualisation efforts, while at the same time developing its own virtualisation product, with vague promises that its own solution will be better,” Philipson reports. “It’s an old technique, known as ‘FUD’ – sow fear, uncertainty and doubt in people’s minds.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Why waste money on an OS-limited Dell or HP or Acer or Sony or any other personal computer than Apple’s Mac which is the only computer that can run everything? This is why Apple has created a robust library of Mac-only, best-in-class applications (iLife, iWork, Final Cut, etc.). Only on a Mac. The world’s largest software library runs only on Apple Macintosh.
Microsoft’s main source of revenue and profit (to fuel on-going money losers like Xbox, Zune, etc.) is WIndows (Office is the other) and most of their OS revenue comes from box assemblers like HP, Dell, etc. As people realize that they can get a Mac and run everything, the Dells of the world get hurt and, in turn, so does Microsoft – because not everyone will buy and run Windows on their Mac and those that do start out with their Windows insecurity blanket quickly realize that they want to use the secure, fun, and powerful Mac OS X instead. Embrace and extinguish. Windows-only sufferers who get Macs quickly develop the vision to see that Microsoft’s new clothes don’t exist; Windows is hopelessly outclassed by Mac OS X.
So, developers naturally work to give these users Mac OS X native product. It just gets worse for Microsoft. And Xbox and Zune aren’t going to make up the difference.
The end result: more Mac users, less WIndows users, and the Dark Ages of Personal Computing finally, inexorably come to an end.
Wow, the guy reads like he works for MDN. :p
<b>You would think Microsoft would want to sell more copies of Vista, not fewer. We can only assume Microsoft wants Vista only to run in environments where it has total control.<b>
Hahahahahaha Yeah, MICROSOFT wants “total control”…. At least Vista will run on any hardware, unlike Apple’s Hacked and Hardware limited OSX… Talk about a bunch of control freaks – Look in the Mirror Fanboys!
Fanboys really crack me up!!!
@Shoeman
Your mothers calling, she wants you to clean the basement. Now run along!
Right. It’s hurting Dell, HP, Acer and Micros**t. And they are not going to just sit there and wait. Here’s a roadmap of what’s going to happen in the next five years:
1) The PC makers an, of course, Micros**t, are going to *try* and come up with something competitive, which they will utterly fail to succeed at (how could they possibly succeed, having been used to mediocre products for decades?).
2) Next step (no pun intended) will be some pretty dirty tactics, like a clever licensing trick for Windows inside virtual machines, by M$. Or heavy lobbying in Washington to have “Apple’s stranglehold on the free PC and music market” broken up. With a little luck and the right connections on the side of Apple, this will also fail.
3) YellowBox is revived, and iWork as well as iLife are ported to W*n32. Turns out they run beautifully. W*n-users start using the free 90-day demo and find out how well Apple software really works.
4) His Steveness offers both users and PC makers a goodie, quite to the disadvantage of some nastily rich people in Redmond: With W*ndows apps now running in a fully transparent way inside MacOSX (Parallels, VMware, or W*nEmulationKit inside MacOSX, why not bundle OSX instead of (or in addition to) W*ndows?
Do not underestimate the probability for that last scenario. Steve Jobs has done the same thing in 1993, porting NeXTSTEP to Dell PCs, and they bundled it with a special model. He can do it again, and this time it is not likely to fail as it did 14 years ago (at that time, the NeXT hardware was head and shoulders above any intel PC so Dell had a really hard time selling their NeXTSTEP-PCs. Dell made NeXT stop selling hardware and move to a software only company).
@8R,
What is wrong with what shoeman said? According to the macdailynews take pcs are bad because they won’t run OS X. The problem with their take is pcs aren’t limited in what they will run, but in what they can run. Apple WILL NOT LET OS X run on pcs so, really Apple seems to be the one scared of the general pc market.
So, what if microsoft changed vista to use the TPM like OS X does. They could make it so mac hardware couldn’t run os x and then it would be the same “OS-limited” hardware as stuff from dell or hp. It is so interesting that microsoft allowing mac users to run vista on their machines is used to make microsoft look bad, when apple won’t allow os x on anything expect hardware that has been blessed in the “steve jobs shrine.”
But whatever. It seems that actually logic escapes most of you.
I dunno, without reading the article like the typical moron, I’d say virtualization helps Microsoft. Since the advent of Parallels, I’ve personally purchased more copies of Windows for clients than ever before.
The sad ironic truth of the matter is that people are buying Macs and running Windows on them.
“Virtualisation shifts the paradigm.”
…and Chrissy stops reading. Zune Tang, I think we need some MBA spin control over here.
Who even wants to run Windows or Vista? I’m glad I have that option but I have yet to fork over the $$$ for a Windows cd. The Mac OS X does the job just fine.
Oh no Thelonius. That may be the short term scenario – the medium and longer term says that will be the last version of Windows they will ever buy..!
@ who has to have control?
I think an important part of the debate is the fact that Apple probably cares what kind of hardware OSX is run on. Obviously they want you to buy their computers, but I think they also don’t want their OS sold with some $199 hunk of junk computer, not only because they’re slow but because they’re usually really ugly too. Obviously everything Apple has to be pretty.
I do agree with the argument that Macs might be the most versatile for operating systems because they run everything, including OSX. But I think that they are the least versatile as far as hardware goes. I also disagree with the idea that microsoft wants total control. The fact that you can get windows with any machine, other than macs, says they don’t necessarily want total control. They just want everyone to own it because they make more money. And Apple wants to make more money too, so for anyone to get OSX, they have to buy a Mac.
What’s wrong with what “Shoeman” said is the childishness he displays here and elsewhere on this site – he’s a worthless troll who loves to boast about using cracked versions of OS X on his homemade über PCs. Your response, however, was more reasoned, albeit differing from most of us here; in addition, the “adoration” of Steve Jobs detractors such as yourself love to flame on about is much rarer than believed.
“So, what if microsoft changed vista to use the TPM like OS X does. They could make it so mac hardware couldn’t run os x and then it would be the same “OS-limited” hardware as stuff from dell or hp.
You sir/mam, are a complete genius.
I hope you’re right Macaday….
Couple of examples though…
I have a law firm client. All macs. About 30 people. A few machines got Parallels because they needed to access websites, FREAKING WEBSITES that don’t work with the Macintosh. Government stuff. After they got Windows on their Macs they began leaning more and more on it. Soon everyone in the office was asking for a copy of Parallels and Windows on their Macs. We’re still fighting about it.
Another example, a record label. All Macintosh. CFO runs an ancient accounting system under Windows that is actually running in a Virtual IBM VM system within Windows. So it’s Virtualization on top of Virtualization. He finally agreed to get a Mac like everyone else . The deal was he was only going to use Windows for the accounting system (that is so old it’s a command line based thing). Unfortunately he went out and bought Office for Windows and other software and now he’s running Windows full time on the Mac. I finally just moved him to bootcamp.
I fear these sorts of things are more the norm than we know. I mean, if thousands of people buy Macs and then use them to run Windows, did Apple’s market share increase or did it?
“So, what if microsoft changed vista to use the TPM like OS X does. They could make it so mac hardware couldn’t run os x and then it would be the same “OS-limited” hardware as stuff from dell or hp.”
Well you see, they couldn’t. The reason the Windows is Windows (and one of the resons it has so many problems) is because it is saddled with decades of compatibility requirements. Is MS suddenly implemented a TPM-like strategy for Windows, then this new version would not run on the millions or ancient machines that Windows currently runs. Now Vista, with its steep hardware requirements, almost did just this… and it didn’t cause a huge uptick in new hardware sales to accommodate it. And not EVERYONE had to buy a new machine for Vista, just MOST people. If you were required to buy a new machine to run the new TPM’d Windows, how many copies do you think they would sell?
So no, MS couldn’t “just change Vista”. It would not be Vista any more.
Microsoft’s solution will be better! Yeah Java was so much better than… wait… it wasn’t. Yeah HTML was soo much… nah that wasn’t either. Yeah dynamic html…. ok not even gonna argue that one. But liquid motion killed flash.. no that didnt work out so well either… But wait! Vista! Vista was soo much better than.. no it really wasn’t at all was it.
Come to think of it, none of it was any better.
Ok I’m convinced. I’m gonna go by 3 more Mac’s just to make up for the past 10 years of Microsoft hell.
@ who has to have control?
What’s wrong with what “Shoeman” said is the childishness he displays here and elsewhere on this site – he’s a worthless troll who loves to boast about using cracked versions of OS X on his homemade über PCs.
Actually, to be clear, i also have several Macs. I don’t love to “boast” about using OSX 86, I simply point out that it runs and runs well on ANY standard PC hardware…
Apple’s problem’s if they allowed OSX to run on ANY PC, they would never sell ANY of their overpriced Macs (well, except for morons like you who spend your day dreaming of sticking your tongue up Steve Job’s ass)
BTW Little Boy, My mommy hasn’t called me in years. I happen to be 50 years old. On the other hand, you have teenager written all over you..
WOOOOOO HOOOOO Steve….
Wow, the guy reads like he works for MDN. :p
He was actually a Mac basher for years, but saw the light a year or two back.
I really really do not like anything microsoft makes.
I hate what they stand for.
I really do hope they fail.
opps sorry I had a flashback there.
Microsoft does not have to fail for Apple to succeed…… but when they f-up I so love it
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Oh, and Shoeman, Apple has R&D costs to cover on both its hardware and software, whereas other PC makers can just slap together the cheapest components they can find. For my money Apple’s superior hardware and software design is worth the (slightly) higher cost.
Shoeman,
You’re offensive. And if you’re truly fifty, you ought to be ashamed at your behaviour, language and, frankly, your appalling lack of taste.
Hmmm. Nah, you just aren’t convincing enough. I’ll have to agree that you’re just a pup.
For those of you PC shit wits and obvious trolls who are hard of learning, let me sum it all up for you:
MS *anything* and PC *anything* sucks serious ass! Period! End of story! Deal with it!
Apple designs and codes circles around MS and every single PC vendor combined! Period! End of story! Deal with it!
If I had a button I could push to make MS cease to exist, I would push it without hesitation. And I’d do the same for Dell, but I’d let HP stick around since I like their printers.
Fact is, if you are pro-MS and/or pro-PC, you are a white trash bottom feeder of an indbred loser. Period! End of story! Deal with it!
And another thing, whenever an obvious Windows troll says, “I use Macs too…blah blah blah…”, they are *always* lying through their teeth. They try to make it sound as if they are knowledgable and objective, yet they routinely talk out of their ass. Sad thing is, they think they are fooling us.
That is why M$ bought the company that did virtualization for the Motorola chips….To try to bully ppl away from Macs. But when Jobs switched to Intel, M$ got an overdue and proper Zuning.
When I bought my copy of Virtual PC there were Windoze, DOS, OS/2, and Linux options. M$’s first move…kill the non-Windoze options. Second move make the product slower. Third move discontinue Virtual PC altogether. Now Boot Camp makes the purchase of Parallels and VMWARE futile. End results Mac users get a much better computing experience….
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Just my $0.02
@ Shoeman
Yeah, that “tongue up the ass” comment really demonstrates your maturity level.