Apple to world: Yes, we do Windows

Ken Doyle

Advertisement
On April Fool's Day 30 years ago, three entrepreneurs founded Apple Computer and began selling personal computers that were hand-built in a garage. This April, many Apple observers waited for new hardware announcements but were disappointed as April Fool's Day came and went without even an acknowledgment of the anniversary on Apple's Web site.

More choices

A week later, Apple did make a major announcement, although it was not a new computer or iPod. Instead, Apple released a public beta of software called Boot Camp that enables Windows XP (Service Pack 2) to be installed on Intel Macs, transforming them into dual-boot systems that can run Mac OS X or Windows XP with equal finesse.

Apple wasn't the first to reach this milestone -- a couple of pseudonymous hackers had already devised a method to boot Win-dows on Intel Macs, thereby winning more than $13,000 in prize money raised through donations (www.winxponmac.com). However, their solution was unstable and could cause serious damage in the hands of an inexperienced user.

In contrast, Boot Camp provides a user-friendly interface, and -- most importantly -- Apple drivers that enable most of the Mac's hardware to operate flawlessly in Windows.

While many analysts saw this development as giving Apple a major foothold in the enterprise market (driving the stock up by over 15 percent on the day of the announcement), it would be unrealistic to expect large companies, already heavily invested in conventional PC hardware, to open their doors to Apple. However, business of all sizes often need both Macs and PCs, and the opportunity to run both operating systems on a single computer could represent significant savings.

Virtual reality

A day after Apple announced Boot Camp, a company named Parallels (www.parallels.com) released a beta version of its virtualization software for Intel Macs. Virtualization is a technology that enables users of a "host" operating system (in this instance, Mac OS X) to run others, such as Windows or Linux, alongside the host in a protected environment dubbed a "sandbox." The virtualization option eliminates the need to reboot the computer in order to switch operating systems, and offers near-native performance -- in other words, running Windows XP in virtualization on an Intel Mac would feel just like running it on a PC of similar specifications. The Parallels Workstation software is expected to be commercially available this summer for under $50. It's also likely that a competing product will soon be available from VMWare (www.vmware.com), the undisputed leader in the fast-growing enterprise virtualization market.

Best of both worlds?

Why would you want to run multiple operating systems on your computer? It's true that diehard extremists have very vocal arguments against doing so. Some users refuse to sully their Macs with anything so "commonplace" as Windows. Others refuse to support Macintosh "toys" on their Microsoft corporate networks. However, many of us appreciate the simplicity, power, and security of Mac OS X running on Apple hardware, yet require the use of Windows for various tasks that just aren't possible on the Mac. The bottom line: Being able to run several operating systems on a single computer is all about having more options. And, in this case, that's a good thing.

Resources

Printable format

E-mail this story

Index of advertisers

Directory