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If any Mac users are gonna run Windows, I think it would be for games.

Also, this will help people "switch", people feel more comfortable if they can slowly switch from the one OS to the other... This allows people to do just that.

"What people really want is to run OSX on regular PCs so they don't have to run Windows anymore.

I have never met a single Mac user that has any interest whatsoever in running Windows. In fact, they are willing to spend the big buck to NOT run Windows."

The sales of VirtualPC say otherwise.

The sales of VirtualPC say otherwise.

I think the original poster was making a subtle point. Mac users don't want to run Windows, they do however want to run Windows applications / games. if they had a way to run those games / applications without installing Windows, they would.

I think the original poster was making a subtle point. Mac users don't want to run Windows, they do however want to run Windows applications / games. if they had a way to run those games / applications without installing Windows, they would.

I think the same thing could be said about us Windows users

Windows users don't want to run Windows, we do however want to run Windows applications / games. if we had a way to run those games / applications without installing Windows, we would.

I think the decision between buying a Mac and/ur using Linux with Wine/Crossover totally depends on how often you would have to boot into Windows/Virtual PC to get done what you want/need done. If the answer is 'not often', then you're all set. If the answer is 'all the time', then you're kind of stuck. I've got about 4 Windows-only apps that I use daily (2 of which were written by me for very specialized tasks, so I'd have to rewrite the damn things for another platform), so the switch isn't really practical.

Edited 2006-04-08 20:28

That's an interesting statement, and I don't doubt it's true for several Windows users; however, I believe that certain people from both sides want to be able to run the other natively on their hardware.

Lets consider people who don't have enough money to buy more than one computer, then there's the people who got their computer from their parents and who cannot yet afford to get another computer as long as the price is over a few hundred dollars. These people are stuck with what they have, whether it's a Mac to begin with or any other computer. I fall in that group, I want to be able to run OS X if not for any other reason than to try it out as a development platform, but I have nothing but x86 hardware (largely in part due to price, this all predates the Mac Mini and the core-solo model still seems overpriced, although tempting). Mac users are pretty lucky now to have a system capable of running Windows, Linux and OS X, many of us owning computers Jobs hasn't deemed worthy of running his OS are stuck never knowing the sight of OS X booting on our hardware.

Maybe it's just one of those cases of the grass seeming greener on the other side, but I'll never know until I've been there and that is a very tempting thought.

Yes, but there are plenty of Windows users (myself included) who would like to run OSX. I run Windows because I have to (.Net developer). I would run OSX because I want to. Choice is good...and if I can do it all on one machine, even better.

Then become a Cocoa and J2EE Developer and run it on OS X.

You're obviously clueless, so I'll clue you in. Almost all of the J2EE developers in corporate IT use Windows to write their apps. Cocoa doesn't even exist in corp IT.

Your assumption is flawed for several reasons:

1) VirtualPC doesn't run all Windows apps (i.e. games)
2) VirtualPC is slow
3) If you are going to buy an expensive Mac, a Windows OS, and VirtualPC just to run Windows, then why not save a boat load of money and just buy a PC?

Personally, I hate using virtual machines (with the acception of Xen) so I can't see why anybody would use one, but I guess they have reasons. I just don't think a burning desire to run Windows is one of them.

Well when something currently DOMINATES THE DESKTOP MARKET I believe they have the right to say Windows is whatever they want. If it were nearly as bad as you make it out to be, then it wouldn't be so sucessful.

Just because it doesn't work EXACTLY how you want it doesn't mean the entire world has to sit back and digest your opinion, get a grip.

WOAH!!! Chill out!

The only comment I was making was that I found it funny how MS was complementing themselves.

The second part of my commment was only to say that you are defeated once you admit defeat.

You missed a great point here, dominating the desktop market does not make you the best. Do yuo measure quality in base of quantity? weird. Something to think of.

I think it means that at one point you had the best product. It doesn't neccesarily mean you still do though.

Something has to be going right when you dominate the market. I don't see how this is quantity.. they can throw all the copies they want around but unless they can get their product to sell it's irrelevant. Stop trying to make a point when in reality you're just throwing words around to sound like you have something even close to intelligent.

Something has to be going right when you dominate the market.

Well AOL must be a "Great ISP" then because it has the most market share.

Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's any good.

Of course it does, else people would drop it.

Of course it does, else people would drop it.

Only if people are educated and aware enough to make an informed decision. Most people who use AOL don't know that there's a better way to access the internet. Most people who use IE don't know that there's a better web browser. Most people who use Windows don't know that there's a better OS. Microsoft and AOL succeed because their customers are ignorant of the alternatives, are not informed, and have very, very low expectations.

You had me up until "better OS". That one is way way too subjective, while the others are much less.

Nice try though.

Domination doesn't mean that something is the best. For example, OSX vs. Windows, Betamax vs. VHS, AMD vs. Intel, a lump of poo vs. Packard Bell computers, and so on.

Well, I might remind you that Apple is the one barring OSX from running on non-Apple machines (talk about extreme bundling). It is not GNU/Linux, *BSD nor Windows that is artificially picky about what kind of x86 box to run on.

If you want real choice go with an OS that doesn't artificially prescribe a hardware brand. E.g. Pick GNU/Linux, Windows, Open/Net/FreeBSD, Haiku etc.

Yeah that would be something like Apple to do. They seem to always have something facinating and cool up their sleeve that really works.

It will be very interesting to see how this will play out, because after having a iPod their is a whole new generation that has only known a iPod with a Apple logo on it.

Fun times!

another option is that people run either a native or the windows version of openoffice

still, most likely apple will base the file format for their own office suite on th openoffice formats...

Step 6: Microsoft can't cancel Office for Mac because theu have a 5 year agreement with Apple.

Just because Microsoft have an agreement to develop Office for Mac for 5 years doesn't mean they have to release anything in that time. They can simply drag their feet for years if they want to. Look at Vista. Back in 2001, they knew they didn't have anything coming down the pipeline for the next few years, so what did they do to protect their revenue stream? They convinced large companies (mine included) to sign Enterprise Agreements, which were annual subscriptions which grant you the right to upgrade to the latest versions as soon as they are released.

The IT guys in my company thought, "wow what a great deal, let's do that it'll save so much money." What have we gotten for the MILLIONS that we pay to Microsoft annually since we signed up for the EA in 2002? ONE new version of Office. That's it. No new versions of Windows or anything else we use. Yet we pay subscription money each and every year that equals far, far more than we would pay each year if we simply bought Windows and Office licenses with each new PC we leased. What a scam. Brillian on Microsoft's part, they get paid millions a year from my compay for NOTHING, but I wouldn't be surprised if they become the target of some lawsuits from angry Fortune 500 customers in the near future.

Sounds realistic.

An apple office suite would be cool.

Openoffice is very nice for the price, but it essentially copies ms office. Off the top of my head i can think of better designs, visualize them. From this point of view it seems relativly easy to make a good office suite, but i know the amount of code involved is enourmous. I blame this on programming languages and API, but it would probably still take a ton even with insanely good not-yet-invented languages and an intuitive API.

LOP would probably work very well for office suites, but it adds the overhead of custom language extension. Under a good LOP framework this would probably not be much. The real problem is you can't change it too much once you get underway.

Ahwell, anyway, I can imagine an apple office suite being full featured with simplistic UI.

"I don't think "monopoly" is a word that can really be used with Apple right now, but Mr. Sood brings up an interesting point. "

I think that's the key point: Apple often act in a manner which would be typical of Microsoft however, they are not breaking the law as they are not a monopoly.

It would be cute if Apple did what Be did several years ago and "offered" dell to install OSX as long as they guarantee dual boot. Even if Dell wanted to install OSX Microsoft would never allow it! Realize that when Apple starts to take real market share Dell and other Wintel only vendors will be squirming like crazy. Restriction of dual-booting has always been the REAL unspoken linchpin of Microsoft's monopoly. Be Got 100 million out of them in order to keep that issue out of court and away from the DOJ. If Apple's actions start Squeezing the "Dells" of the world it should be very interesting. If Apple would just acknoladge the base of Linux and cooperate with iTunes and such then the squeeze would really be on!

I wonder too whether Apple will offer their laptops with two trackpad buttons. They now supply multi-button mice with their desktops. Using a one button mouse is bearable on Mac OS X. It'd probably be really annoying on Windows.

This would be suicide. Apple prides itself on the phrase, "It just works". Doing something like you propose would take away a huge cornerstone of the Apple mantra. Suddenly the OS that is pretty rock solid is unstable thanks to third party drivers. The experience of using OS X goes into the toilet, and I can guarantee that few will say, "Well it's unsupported so what do you expect." They'll think it's crap and never look at Apple again.

Apple will *never* release a version of OS X for standard PC's. There are too many hardware variances to deal with.

Not caring nor concerned, about the technical specs nor the finanacial ramnifications of this

Buh-bye.

You don't think apple hasn't already dealt with all of those? The whole point behind bootcamp is to be able to run windows, so it's going to run windows. If you'd actually looked at the boot camp page (http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/), you would've found all your questions answered...

The legal restrictions are needed because of Microsoft's marketshare. As competition increases, the market will probably sort it all out without legal intervention--in fact, further legel intervention would probably hurt the market.

Did I say otherwise? I said that if their market share goes down, those legal restrictions may be lifted.

I don't think that'll happen. People (me included) went Mac because of Mac OS X. We went to Mac land to avoid running Windows and we always had the choice of running Windows by sticking with our then current PC or by buying a cheaper PC. I doubt that many Mac users buy Macs more for the hardware than the OS. Macs look nice and all but they're made up of normal PC hardware components.

Some people who wanted to try out Mac but wanted to still have the safety net of having the choice of running Windows without needing to buy a new PC will now buy Macs. I don't see however that MS is going to lose out loads on this.

Most Windows users will probably still use Windows because it's what they're used to or they need it for work and they can't be bothered dual booting when Windows already does the stuff that they want to do with their computers. Maybe MS will lose some OS market share. Maybe they won't be as dominant in 50 years time but they're not going anywhere.

i hope i'm wrong, but i'm seeing the origins of the demise of osx.

Never. Steve loves his NeXT/OSX, and HATES Windows. He would never drop it in favor of being a hardware only company. He gave an interview a few years ago where he said: "People still don't get it. Apple is a software company." You can find this interview on the web still, yet people act like it doesn't exist and go on and on about how Apple is a hardware company. That's not the way Steve sees it.

Never. Steve loves his NeXT/OSX, and HATES Windows. He would never drop it in favor of being a hardware only company. He gave an interview a few years ago where he said: "People still don't get it. Apple is a software company." You can find this interview on the web still, yet people act like it doesn't exist and go on and on about how Apple is a hardware company. That's not the way Steve sees it.

Dixit Jobs : "Apple's core strength is to bring very high technology to mere mortals in a way that surprises and delights them and that they can figure out how to use. Software is the key to that. In fact, software is the user experience. " ( http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/02/21/8... )

Or as Cringely puts it "Apple is a software company that sells its products inside $1800 boxes."