I'm Rather Intrigued by Apple and Microsoft, Are They Closer Than You Think?
posted 17 April 2006, Monday
With the Intel Core Duo making its splash in headlines and Apple's Brain of Choice something seems very right with the Windows XP BootCamp. For the announcements that came as late as last year about the Intel-Apple marriage followed by the Apple Confirmation that "MAC's wont run Windows". This news was presented with authority on the fact that Apple's use of the extensible firmware interface (EFI) was beyond XP's capabilities.
The release of the MACIntel's in the early part of this year commenced; within months Apple released a dualboot option BootCamp. Which allows a dual boot of Mac OS X or Windows XP. This is a complete marking plan that targets the capability of MacIntel's to become MacInDows. No one really can deny this was just something Apple decided to do in late March. It is a little strange that two weeks prior to Apples announcement, the Windows On A MAC Challenge was achieved. I can only wonder that Apple was working on the Virtual PC/WndowsXP for MAC and had to launch BootCamp in response to the achieved challenger? Furthermore, OS X Leopard hints of this Boot capability or at least Windows on the MacIntel's as a planned strategy. I would like to believe VPC will be handled very well in Leopard, and think BootCamp would not have been released if the challenge was not met.
Think about the advantages for education. Macs running OS X and Windows have a great advantage from class to class. One class is simply a beginner's class to Word processing and boots into Windows. The next class are software engineering students dual booting into a Unix environment to learn C++. Than the music students come in and Garage band is up and they hook up there midi interface to their backpack toting keyboard. Point, many possibilities.
However, their is a huge advantage here with KNOWN hardware and KNOWN OS's. A tech support nightmare in the Intel Windows based world has always been hardware incompatibilities. With Apple controlling hardware integration the documentation and control of missteps is just at a higher level of quality. Support can have a higher quality of control. Think about how much more productive Apple is by addressing 3 dozen configurations and providing the assembly line of tech support of these systems. Many that have experienced Apple's tech support are astounded, as I have been, by their world class effort.
Throw in the fact that Apple's iPod success for the past several years has exposed its product offerings to several 100 million pairs of consumer eyes. Even 10% of this population can be called a potential computer purchasing target. Now , add Windows, and the switch becomes a very real purchase possibility for many iPod owners on he fence.
Now, Gates knows the potential of this and Jobs has these users in his sights to close the sale. What a proposition? Did Apple and Windows just fall into this Dual Boot, Leopard next generation OSX/Windows capability? Yea Right!?! Let's take it s step further, look at Dell, HP, Compaq and Gateway could barely get a Intel Core Duo out the door. Only Acer and Sony beat Apple to market. The specific reasons the bigger companies came to the party late was simply due to the circumstance and requirements of qualifying their notebooks. What if MAC OS X and Windows Vista had KNOWN configurations?
Now add the fact that Microsoft's Vista's 60% rewrite, XBOX developer pool dispersed over Vista's media functionality and it's current perception in the world in terms of security ... Yea, here is Mac OS X to the rescue, eh?
Jobs and Gates can not be far from this thought and I contend that sometime during WWDC 2006 Apple will announce Windows will be available to MAC's as a VM OS not a dual boot. I think this is a natural progression for Apple and Windows and natural for users in many spaces including my development efforts it makes sense.
Not to mention with technologies like Azul Systems and the virtual OS products coming of age Leopard can pounce in this space and Windows all at the same time and gain a lot of ground. Furthermore, what will this do to the Dell, HP, Compaq market? As a MACBook Pro user, Ill punt my Windows laptop for a MAC OS/X and Windows Virtualization. I already have no desire to buy a Dell, HP or Compaq as the quality of these products provide me more loss of time and integration issues that are just unreasonable. (Case in point, spent 4 days and collectively 6 hours reconfiguring my COMPAQ AMD 64BIT laptop to configure the Sierra 860 EVDO Card. On a separate Compaq HT driver issues conflicted and had to open up a com port. Both computers were vintage 2005)
True, Apple is not immune to these new technology problems and conflicts however their solutions and tech support are available through Apple Care offer a better quality in this space, hands down.
My final thought is simple, Microsoft and Apple are in a partnership to cure each other's pain. Vista's poor codebase and Apple's desire to be king in hardware once again.
Yes, I am fond of all things Apple.
The release of the MACIntel's in the early part of this year commenced; within months Apple released a dualboot option BootCamp. Which allows a dual boot of Mac OS X or Windows XP. This is a complete marking plan that targets the capability of MacIntel's to become MacInDows. No one really can deny this was just something Apple decided to do in late March. It is a little strange that two weeks prior to Apples announcement, the Windows On A MAC Challenge was achieved. I can only wonder that Apple was working on the Virtual PC/WndowsXP for MAC and had to launch BootCamp in response to the achieved challenger? Furthermore, OS X Leopard hints of this Boot capability or at least Windows on the MacIntel's as a planned strategy. I would like to believe VPC will be handled very well in Leopard, and think BootCamp would not have been released if the challenge was not met.
Think about the advantages for education. Macs running OS X and Windows have a great advantage from class to class. One class is simply a beginner's class to Word processing and boots into Windows. The next class are software engineering students dual booting into a Unix environment to learn C++. Than the music students come in and Garage band is up and they hook up there midi interface to their backpack toting keyboard. Point, many possibilities.
However, their is a huge advantage here with KNOWN hardware and KNOWN OS's. A tech support nightmare in the Intel Windows based world has always been hardware incompatibilities. With Apple controlling hardware integration the documentation and control of missteps is just at a higher level of quality. Support can have a higher quality of control. Think about how much more productive Apple is by addressing 3 dozen configurations and providing the assembly line of tech support of these systems. Many that have experienced Apple's tech support are astounded, as I have been, by their world class effort.
Throw in the fact that Apple's iPod success for the past several years has exposed its product offerings to several 100 million pairs of consumer eyes. Even 10% of this population can be called a potential computer purchasing target. Now , add Windows, and the switch becomes a very real purchase possibility for many iPod owners on he fence.
Now, Gates knows the potential of this and Jobs has these users in his sights to close the sale. What a proposition? Did Apple and Windows just fall into this Dual Boot, Leopard next generation OSX/Windows capability? Yea Right!?! Let's take it s step further, look at Dell, HP, Compaq and Gateway could barely get a Intel Core Duo out the door. Only Acer and Sony beat Apple to market. The specific reasons the bigger companies came to the party late was simply due to the circumstance and requirements of qualifying their notebooks. What if MAC OS X and Windows Vista had KNOWN configurations?
Now add the fact that Microsoft's Vista's 60% rewrite, XBOX developer pool dispersed over Vista's media functionality and it's current perception in the world in terms of security ... Yea, here is Mac OS X to the rescue, eh?
Jobs and Gates can not be far from this thought and I contend that sometime during WWDC 2006 Apple will announce Windows will be available to MAC's as a VM OS not a dual boot. I think this is a natural progression for Apple and Windows and natural for users in many spaces including my development efforts it makes sense.
Not to mention with technologies like Azul Systems and the virtual OS products coming of age Leopard can pounce in this space and Windows all at the same time and gain a lot of ground. Furthermore, what will this do to the Dell, HP, Compaq market? As a MACBook Pro user, Ill punt my Windows laptop for a MAC OS/X and Windows Virtualization. I already have no desire to buy a Dell, HP or Compaq as the quality of these products provide me more loss of time and integration issues that are just unreasonable. (Case in point, spent 4 days and collectively 6 hours reconfiguring my COMPAQ AMD 64BIT laptop to configure the Sierra 860 EVDO Card. On a separate Compaq HT driver issues conflicted and had to open up a com port. Both computers were vintage 2005)
True, Apple is not immune to these new technology problems and conflicts however their solutions and tech support are available through Apple Care offer a better quality in this space, hands down.
My final thought is simple, Microsoft and Apple are in a partnership to cure each other's pain. Vista's poor codebase and Apple's desire to be king in hardware once again.
Yes, I am fond of all things Apple.
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