ON APPLE'S BABY STEPS TOWARDS WINDOWS

INCHING FOWARD...

The big news today in the tech world (and on memeorandum) seems to be Apple's announcement of "Boot Camp".  Quoting from the press release,

"Apple® today introduced Boot Camp, public beta software that enables Intel-based Macs to run Windows XP. Available as a download beginning today, Boot Camp allows users with a Microsoft Windows XP installation disc to install Windows XP on an Intel-based Mac®, and once installation is complete, users can restart their computer to run either Mac OS® X or Windows XP. Boot Camp will be a feature in “Leopard,” Apple’s next major release of Mac OS X, that will be previewed at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in August.

“Apple has no desire or plan to sell or support Windows, but many customers have expressed their interest to run Windows on Apple’s superior hardware now that we use Intel processors,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “We think Boot Camp makes the Mac even more appealing to Windows users considering making the switch.”

OK, it's not quite the "game changing" move that I outlined last August that Apple could make, but a big step close towards it.  In that post, I posited that Apple could:

"...offer a Mac desktop and/or laptop that has TWO hard drives in it.  One has the latest and greatest Mac OS on it.  And the second has Windows XP/Windows Vista on it, which of course, the customer pays for.

This makes it VERY easy for the user then to boot up into EITHER operating system, and have both Windows and Mac applications (and their own related files), on the same machine.  They'd just be on two different drives on the same machine.

The customer then gets a machine directly from Apple that supports BOTH operating systems, provides the best of both worlds in terms of application software, AND...

has special Apple-enhanced, cool software that makes working with both operating systems seamless and easy.  In effect, it encourages the customer to "SWITCH" operating systems AFTER buying and using the PC, rather than forcing them to commit to one or the other operating system today.

Very simple...Apple thus becomes a Windows reseller, which benefits Microsoft in the near-term.

But longer-term, it gets customers to try a Mac while buying a Windows PC...a no-lose proposition."

Apple's announcement today is in the spirit of this possible move.  At the moment, Boot Camp is more interesting to geeks and early adopters.  Over time, Boot Camp obviously needs to be even simpler to use over time if mainstream users will embrace it.

A good first step Apple.  We look forward to more.

Comments

[Nolan Eakins]

I think Apple may have jumped the shark on this. They shoud have announced an OS X based tablet. That's one reason why I thought they went to Intel, but that must not be the case. OS X would be the perfect OS for a tablet too, especially with the menu bar always up top and that it's designed for a single mouse button or tapping device.