Mac does windows

“anti competitive” ?? What do you call Apple? They are the monopoly the OS, the hardware, and a lot of the software!

Don’t you know? M$ is anti-compteitive because they are winning :wink:

MacTech, would it kill you to use the shift and period keys?

anti-competitive.

But on a more serious note, I am starting to see this as a postitive step (my first reaction was that hell must have frozen over). Speaking of OSs, what I am really wondering about is what Google has in store next. I hear people saying GoogleOS, but I have a hard time believing it.

How is this different from the current situation, where there is essentially no choice(*), and everyone is forced to use Microsoft Windows whether they want to or not?

(* = Except for the few brave souls with the smarts and taste to use Linux or MacOS X, anyway :wink: ).

I find it silly whenever Windows users bring up a “life would suck under an Apple monopoly” argument, simply because they inevitably overlook the fact that we already have a similar situation today, even to the point where Microsoft is threatening retailers who sell PCs without Windows pre-installed.

Yeah, and Ford has a monopoly on Explorers, Sony has a monopoly on PlayStations, and Pepsico has a monopoly on Mountain Dew. Gasp!

Setting aside the fact that not all PCs are generic or beige, that’s exactly the reason that I don’t use OS X.

If OS X would run on the sweet lookin AMD system sitting on my desk right now, which Windows and many, many flavors of Unix and Linux will, I might be a convert. But it doesn’t, and I’m not about to go out and buy an off-the-shelf system so that I can have OS X. I’ve always liked to build my own, and I still do. Running a system that has what Steve Jobs wants in it just so that I can have OS X doesn’t seem worthwhile to me.

If they’d just open it up so that I could install it on this hardware, I’d give it a shot. Because they will not, I will continue to dual boot Fedora and Windows XP.

If you build your own systems, you can be pretty sure you’re not in Apple’s target market. OS X may appeal to command-line geeks, but Apple are really trying to sway the masses, not the elite.

Exactly…Apple is no better than any other company…its business as usual.

I love the MacOS and have never owned (and only very rarely used) a PC, would pay a huge premium to be able to continue being a MacOS user, etc, etc.

But yeah, I have no illusions that the personal-computing world would be nicer if Apple somehow stomped Microsoft and Dell_&_Etc out of existence and became the sole vendor.

I wish there were more platforms, not less. Different ideas, challenges, alternative approaches all keep the idea-ground fertile.

Aside from the ass-tastic Alienware PCs, I have yet to see a name-brand non-Mac PC that didn’t look like it stepped out of the “Generic beige/black rectangle factory”, and that’s counting the two on my desk at the moment. YMMV.

</hijack>

My thoughts (none of them original) are:

It would be foolish for Apple to start selling their OS software for use on non-Apple personal computers. Right now, one of the biggest selling points for MacOS is that “it just works” - ease of use and simplicity of installation. Once you start selling it for PCs, then anybody with a homebuilt computer will try to install it, see that it doesn’t work with bargain-basement video card X, and the word will start spreading that OS X has as many problems and issues as Windows; or the person will complain to Apple support and demand that Apple fix the problem.

Apple could say “OS X is only supported on these configurations from Dell / Compaq etc., using this type of video card, this type of firewire card, etc.” but why would they bother to support some limited set of hardware configurations? If you want to buy a computer with an intel processor to run MacOS you already can - it’s called the Macintosh.

I think that the ability to dual-boot Windows on a Macintosh will be beneficial to many Macintosh users who need to run a few Windows programs (though, as I mentioned in another thread, I would probably use virtualization software myself e.g. parallels workstation).

In the long run, I am afraid that this might hurt the Macintosh software industry and Apple itself. I envision the following scenario: I want to do task X (let’s say personal finances). I go to the software manufacturer’s site and I see that the software for Windows is $10 less than the software for Macintosh. I might say to myself “I only do my checking account twice a month so I’ll buy the Windows version instead of the Macintosh version”. Eventually the user may find himself spending more and more time in Windows and eventually abandoning the Macintosh OS.

Of course, my predictions on the computer industry are wrong more often than not (I never would have thought that Apple could break into the music industry with a handheld device and dominate the market.)

So what’s the endgame? At best, the consumer market switches over to Apple, decides that even though they have both OSX and Windows on their Mac, they like OSX better and nobody ever buys a consumer version of Windows again. Even in this unlikely scenario, Microsoft has a firm lock on the corporate environment. There’s no way businesses are going to make the switch, and Gates brilliantly started his moneytrain by grabbing the corporate market in the first place.

So everyone uses Windows at work and OSX at home. Jobs and Gates peacefully co-exist, comfortable in the knowledge that they dominate their respective markets.

Yes? No?

Anyone?

I think it’s really too soon to say, and perhaps impossible to predict, what will happen as a result of Apple’s switch to Intel, and full Windows compatibility. Tech analysists are about as accurate as a flipped coin on such matters, and, as they’re the “experts”, I’ve pretty much goten to the point that I’ve given up on forecasts that go more than a year or two into the future.

People have been predicting the demise of Apple since it was born, so that ought to sound a cautionary note to anyone who thinks they hear a death knell in this development. Short term, it’s simply smart money. At worst it costs them nothing for the forseable future. If, on the other hand, it got Apple a 0.5% increase in American market share alone, you’re talking maybe tens of millions of dollars in new profit. Something like that would take a year or two to materialize, and beyond then the picture is so cloudy I’d say it’s a waste of time to worry about it. Vista will be on the scene, and what impact that will have nobody knows. If, for instance, Microsoft can’t achieve improved security with Vista, I would expect corporate disillusionment is going to lead many more businesses to eschew a new Windows iteration, and maybe move on to Linux or OSX. So, Bootcamp provides a nice bridge in such a scenerio.

That’s just me making a WAG, of course. Again, having followed the analysts for a while, I’m convinced my WAG, your WAG, your dog’s WAG, are worth about as much as theirs.

A key to understanding is to realize that Apple (read: Steve Jobs) is not interested in “winning” the “game” by having Apple stomp Microsoft off the face of the Earth.

As long as Apple continues to produce superior products and can maintain its corporate health, that’s all that matters to them.

OP here. Hmm. I was actually talking about the TECHNICAL MERITS of running bootcamp. In the time I was away, actually setting up and running my new I-Mac on bootcamp this has degenerated into the old tired flamewar of Apple vs. Mac.

While you guys were arguing about what this would mean for the future of Apple, I have invested in Apple. I have already made money.

While you guys were debating how many angels could dance, etc… I have installed and run my whole suite of XP apps including Photoshop, Lightwave, Office, you name it. All running flawlessly. I have installed Final Cut Studio on the Mac partition and learned how to use the Mac for the first time. With MacDrive 6 I am able to transfer work between the environments.

This is good for Apple. This is good for Microsoft. This is double plus good for the user. Stop arguing! Of course what fun would that be. Maybe I need to start a new thread to get technical. :smiley:

Yes. It does! :smiley:

MMM, PC vs. Mac. Freudian slip, I’m sure.

And a tip of the Wanderer’s hat to you for providing the only useful piece of info in the whole thread. :rolleyes:

What exactly did you think would happen when you finished off the OP with this?

I should have said technical merits. Sorry. In any case, I think that is the interesting discussion now, because for good or ill, the cat is well and truly out of the bag at this point.

If Apple was to rescind this it would require positive action on Apple’s part because even if they stop bootcamp, now that it is known to be possible the hackers will take care of the rest, so Apple would have to start playing cat and mouse with them etc. Jobs is too smart for this. He made a bet and I think a good one.

The other thing is, if they did this, well the repercussions would be very harmful to Apple. They have basicly said “Go Ahead. Here, we’ll even help you a little.” For them to go back on this would negatively impact the not unimportant asset of the company’s reputation for being user friendly.

Lastly, this 28 year veteran has bought his first Mac. And I love it. And OSX is very nice. Windows is indespensable to me. Jobs made a good bet. He will sell more Macs, and more Windows users will become familiar with Macs. The fact that Gates will ship a few more copies of Windows doesn’t really make a difference in Microsoft’s picture.

Everybody wins.

Enjoy :slight_smile: