[Mb-civic] For Those Who Are Fortunate Enough To Have A Mac

[Michael Butler]

The New York Times
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April 8, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
Microsoft's Mac Attack
By ROBERT X. CRINGELY

Charleston, S.C.

HELL froze over this week as Apple Computer unveiled Boot Camp, a free
program that will allow its new Macintosh computers with Intel
microprocessors to run Microsoft's Windows XP operating system as an
alternative to Apple's OS X. The news media were agog and Apple's stock
price zoomed at the announcement. In my view, it was mildly interesting, but
hardly the revolution Apple users want to see.

Many Mac enthusiasts view Boot Camp as a huge coup for Apple that will
eventually take the computer hardware leadership away from Dell and the
software leadership away from Microsoft. The more skeptical warn that Boot
Camp shows the final mastery of the Apple platform by Microsoft. Both
positions are absurd.

Boot Camp, itself, is unexciting. So now you can start your computer running
Windows or OS X ‹ big deal. You can't run Windows and OS X simultaneously,
so you can't cut and paste data between the two operating systems or even
get access to the same data. For that you'd need a version of the program
Virtual PC ‹ a Microsoft product ‹ redesigned to run on the Intel Mac
platform. (Or, I guess, you could use a program called Parallel Workstation
that allows users to run OS X, Windows the Linux operating system on the
same Intel Mac at the same time, madly cutting and pasting between all
three. Now that's exciting.)

The real reason people are in a tizzy about this news is that Mac users love
their computers and Windows users, for the most part, tolerate theirs. So
the Mac people think that this Apple software will demonstrate the inherent
superiority of the product they love and will result in lots of Mac hardware
sales to people who want to continue to use Windows. I don't think so.

It's just too darned hard, for one thing. A Windows PC user would have to
buy a Mac, buy Windows XP, download Boot Camp, then load everything ‹ with
the result that he had a Mac that costs a lot and doesn't run as well as it
would using the traditional Apple software. The PC market is such that few
people are likely to buy Macs just to run Windows, especially since it will
cost $140 for a copy of Windows XP and Apple's machines are far more
expensive than, say, Dell's.

Boot Camp, being free, makes no revenue for Apple and never will. And while
it might help show prospective purchasers the superiority of Apple hardware,
those purchasers would have to buy their Macs first and then convince
themselves that they had done the right thing, which is totally backwards.

Most commentators seem to think that Boot Camp was a shock to Microsoft,
too, which I guarantee you it is not. After all, Microsoft is the one that
truly benefits, because it will get to sell a retail copy of Windows for
every copy of Boot Camp downloaded. The retail version of Windows makes
Microsoft about three times as much profit as the version that comes
preloaded onto PC's made by third parties like Dell.

Now, here is some breaking news: word in Silicon Valley is that another
reason Microsoft wasn't surprised by Boot Camp is that the company has been
quietly working with Apple for months to make sure that Windows Vista (the
next generation of Windows, which is supposed go on sale next January) will
run on Macs with Intel chips.

If that is true, we can expect Apple to make it possible to run Windows
Vista alongside its own operating system by putting an improved Boot Camp
into the next version of OS X (which we can guess now will also ship next
January). I don't know if the folks at Apple would then actually sell copies
of Windows Vista preloaded on their hardware, but it is hard to imagine why
they wouldn't, since it would be an easy source of revenue and be popular
with business customers.

In any case, it seems clear that opening Macs to Windows is all about
selling computers to big businesses and making money, and not about any
religious computing experiences or proselytizing to the Microsoft-buying
infidels.

Besides, Apple-Microsoft alliances never last long ‹ remember that Microsoft
supplied the Basic-language interpreter for the Apple II, amusingly (in
retrospect) named Applesoft ‹ and this one won't, either. Among other
reasons, Apple's chief executive, Steve Jobs, bristles at the thought of
serving under Microsoft's master, Bill Gates.

My bet is that once Apple has Windows Vista running smoothly on its
operating system and helping its business sales, the company will try a more
profitable avenue: marketing a version of OS X able to run on regular PC's
that now use Windows.

This strategy would turn Boot Camp on its head, as the company selling all
those $140 retail copies of its operating system would be Apple. And with
hundreds of millions of Windows machines in the world, getting even 1
percent of PC users to switch to OS X would be a huge new business for
Apple. It would also create another headache for Microsoft. And that, in the
end, is what Apple does best.

Robert X. Cringely is the host of the online PBS program"NerdTV."

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