Redmond's Tim McDonough says Mac lovers have no need to fret over the giant's purchase of the cross-platform franchise from Connectix. Read the interview at BusinessWeek.
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This is about the worst thing that could happen to VirtualPC, however. VirtualPC is used for a lot of things other than running Windows on a Macintosh, I think we will see the last use of it to do anything other than run the latest version of Windows on OS X. An important use of Virtual PC is running other OSes on OS/2, other OSes on Windows (such as older versions of Windows on NT/2K/XP to access legacy applications that will not run on them natively) as well as non-Windows OSes on Macintosh or older versions of Windows. While there's no doubt Microsoft would love to enhance it's ability to sell a copy of the latest version of Windows to a Macintosh user, I think you can count on other options being gone immediately.
to grab the other 5% of the market that MS doesn't already dominate.
I actually think the objective is something else. More and more of the server apps are going to start having serious problems with the x86 limits. On the workstation machines scientific computing and digit are hitting problems. Over the next 5-10 years these problems will go from minor to severe. Microsoft is going to want to shift their customer base over to the Itanium line. However since they'll be losing binary compatability with would normally be an opportunity for customers to reevaluate their entire platform and not just their CPU choice.
Virtual PC is such good quality x86 emulation that a Virtual PC + Microsoft OS allows one to run almost anything in the Wintel software lineup. There is no reason the same team couldn't do this for the Itanium. That would allow Microsoft to move their customer base over smoothly.
That was the same thing I was thinking when then anounced the buy.
Itanium can't run IA32 code; thus, when MSFT releases the new Itanium version of Windows Advanced Server, the only software that will run on it will be MSFT's. Why would I want to buy a server that can run only 10 programs?
"VPC for MAC" is not just an emulator but rather a binary compiler; thus, you can buy the Itanium system and then use VPC run any old IA32 windows application you need.
Connectix also has "VPC for Windows" which lets you run multiple OS on the same box. With computers becoming so fast, it's posiable to consolidate multiple servers into a single box. Using VPC, you can do this and have multiple virtual servers which is something MSFT has never allowed in the past (other companies have).
I'm still thinking about the impending doom that Microsoft could inflict on other OSS works, by starting to acquire or deploy apps that exist. Corel, anyone?
What do you think?
Microsoft has a scary strategy of buying up small Software houses to keep brand loyalty.
..that Connectix always sold VPC with DOS for those people who already own a Windows licence and dont want to be forced to buy another just to use the software...
You reckon Microsoft will continue this? will they hell.
will be "optimized" just like IE for the mac and the office applications. Better get your copies now before it's too late...
- Mark
Maybe it is just too much effort (for the revenue) to port Office 11, IE, etc to the Mac and they just want to virtualize the x86 versions. Connectix will just be linked into Windows Word to turn it into Mac Word.
I was seriously considering this VPC for Windows to allow running BeOS & W2K at same time, almost certainly won't do that now. The 5.1 eval was looking good with only a few issues that a faster dual cpu would have laid to rest. Now it has a really big issue.
Connectix was always one of my fav companies going way back to RamDoubler etc, MS is not on my fav list to buy anything if I can help it, big shame. I also remember Visio another product I almost bought.
But I understand what MS will gain from this, having virtualization technology basically will allow them to dump support for all the old OSes (including one day W2K & XP) from current OSes, just put all the old stuff into well defined sandboxes.
As for the Itanium, well it helps MS be more cpu neutral again, could also apply to Hammer, or even PPC (if its a Mac).
my 2c
maybe the red haters can jump in and explain how they want
red hat to become just like microsoft.
they say they won linux and all.
ooooooohhhh
rolling on the floor
I would not be surprized if the project will become shelf-stuff.
HP did it with the Apollo. Buy and freeze.
After Java, Linux was one of Corel's biggest mistake. Yes, the product was good, but having the most easiest distribution in town wouldn't make you successful. It failed in many areas, but ultimately, I think Linux wasn't ready for the desktop then.
Meanwhile, Corel entered Linux when they should be focusing on their current markets and strenghtening them, not diversifying. You only do that when you aren't rapidly loosing customers and market power. Corel spread themselves too thin.
So don't blame it on Microsoft. Instead thank them, for without them, Corel would be probably dead, and Windows users would have a great office altenative (the best, IMHO) and good graphics apps. However, you can't expect Corel to continue their money-loosing Linux franchise when there should be paying attention to their core market (namely CorelDRAW).
While the comments about Corel have taken this off-topic, Imagine that Microsoft had not hindered Corel's efforts and that Corel managed to remain in business and now had all their software running on Linux as well as Windows and maybe OS X to boot? WordPerfect Suite handles Office documents pretty well and QuattroPro exports to very clean HTML. This could have made Corel a competitor to Microsoft again and given it a unique position in the marketplace. The Linux on the desktop debate would be OVER. There are many companies managing to survive that are worse off than Corel was. I am glad to have copies of Corel Draw for Linux and WordPerfect Suite for Linux and am quite sorry I didn't get the WP S deluxe version with Paradox.
I find it interesting that they only did this after Linux got User-Mode Linux added to the 2.5 kernel.
I think Microsoft are more scared than they're letting on. After all, uml allows multiple copies of the linux kernel to run, and even multiple copies of different kernels. And it's not the only example of virtual machines in the Linux kernel space - vserver for one, springs to mind.
It should be interesting to watch this space over the next few years.
