By Robert X. Cringely, the host of the online PBS program"NerdTV." (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 08/04/06):
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.