Interesting news... apparently now you can have your cake and eat it, too.

Not long after someone claimed the $13,000 dollar contest prize for getting a Mac to dual boot into both Mac OS X and Windows XP (though with extreme difficulty and not everything worked), Apple has released Boot Camp... a dual boot program that facilitates the installation of Windows XP without having to lose any existing Mac files and that allows you to choose which operating system to boot into at start-up. The major difference between the contest winning program and Apple's release is ease of use and the addition of full video acceleration (read: 3D games!).

How well does it work? Here's what PC World had to say:

First Look: PC World Installs Windows XP on a 20-Inch iMac With Boot Camp

Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal also reports that his Windows Mac runs blazingly fast:

Boot Camp Turns Your Mac Into a Reliable Windows PC

Questions for debate:
Will this add some benefit to buying a mac? If so, what?

What effect will this have on Apple's marketshare?

Would you choose a Mac over a PC because of this new feature? If so or if not, why?

Will this add some benefit to buying a Mac? If so, what?

I already use Apple Hardware so I already know some of the benefits of being a Mac user. What this new feature does is remove most of the downsides to being a Mac user. When I upgrade to a new Mac (probably next year) I will definitely be getting one of the new Intel Macs. Why? Because I would love to be able to buy Quicken for something less than $50 – and it has more features in the Windows version. I'd love to be able to buy games for something less than $50 and not ever have to wonder when they will port it over to the Mac and or wonder just how badly the game will be crippled by the port. I admit to being one of those who was upset by the cancellation of Half-Life for the Mac back in 1998. Now I would be able to play Half-Life 2 (and not a ported version) on my Mac no problem. Also, I'd love to use some of the Windows only software out there... MS Access being the primary one.

Add to this the benefit of not having to deal with spyware or windows viruses. How? Well, you see I will still use my Mac for basic web surfing and really only use the internet in Windows for gaming and downloading the occasional update. I certainly won't use email in Windows. An added benefit is the fact that while OS X can read and write to a Windows partition, the opposite is not true. So if I want to send a document I created in Windows via email, I can do so within OS X. If I do happen to get a virus, I feel comfortable knowing that it will have no effect whatsoever on my Mac partition.

What effect will this have on Apple's marketshare?

I think it will probably increase the marketshare compared with other PC manufacturers. It will also increase Microsoft's marketshare.

Would you choose a Mac over a PC because of this new feature? If so or if not, why?

I would choose a Mac over a PC anyway, this feature really only makes that decision more sound to me.

Well certainly those of us who use Windows at work would have some benefit. But Mac people got their Macs to avoid Windows. Many Sys Admins I know (and I was one until recently) bought our Macs because we just want our computers to work when we get home. No viruses, no adware, no drivers... it just works. It would be nice to fire up the Windows side and run Outlook (which simply is better than Entourage for dealing with an Exchange server) or MS Money.

Even the most Unixy among us see the shortcomings of Linux or Free BSD and buying a Sun to run Solaris is fairly cost prohibitive if you were expecting it to be snappy in your house. OS X is a great OS and runs more than adequately even on a PowerBook.



Well like nearly everything they've done since the iPod it will only increase it.



I already choose Macs over PCs. This has nothing to do with it.

Will this add some benefit to buying a mac? If so, what?

Don't think so, unless Mac hardware can be shown to be superior to the average PC. That's part of the price/performance analysis.

I've looked at Macs and could not justify the price difference. This might be changing though.

What effect will this have on Apple's market share?

Again, it's price/performance. Overpriced hardware often kills quality software. That's why distributed systems killed mainframes, not entirely mind you, just enough to make mainframe a tough sell. Aye, old story. Distributed costs more than mainframe in the long run. There, I said it!

Would you choose a Mac over a PC because of this new feature? If so or if not, why?

No, I hate dual boot. One machine, one OS -- that's easier to troubleshoot. The pricing of PCs has made the hardware a commodity item, and things like disk drives are real easy to swap, especially with the hard drive drawers. Want dual boot? Swap the C drive. There you go, infinite boot.

I've done this to change from Windows to Linux, trying to figure out why I'd want to go Linux. Various reasons have held me back, the most important being that clients require Word and PDF docs in current formats, which is an iffy thing on Linux. Oh, I know -- everything works on Linux. Fine. It's too much of a pain, meaning time-consuming and client-repelling. I don't like spending money to make my life more difficult.

XP is pretty stable and feature-rich. Isn't the next Windows desktop supposed to be based on the Linux kernel? You know, if it ever gets released.

Now if you're talking servers in a real live business, my standards are in the big iron league: Sun, HP, IBM. But then we are also talking Oracle or DB2 at the terabyte or petabyte DB level, not your usual home apps. Also, the midrange is looking more like the mainframe with domains and LPARs. Great ideas don't die.

Regarding home apps, mine are primarily Web, mail, word processing, photos and music recording. Use to do the gaming thing, but after a while it's a big ho-hum. The PC has matched Mac, I think, for music recording and graphics. But then the only Mac that I've ever spent time with was a Mac II. Back then there was a significant difference, but not enough.

Oh, and doing things like disk-disk backup using USB is solid in PC land these days. Just don't see any reason to muck up the works with Macs.

I personally think that everything will be on the Web eventually, and your home machine won't need much of an OS. Old mainframers never die either. Macs might though. Remember when geeks bragged about wiring their homes with Cat 5? Ha! That's so last century.

No. It is not. Not even a little. Not at all.

Well, I got it backward. But Windows and Linux are a lot more similar at the kernel level than "not at all:"

Linux Becoming Like Windows

While this may have been true in the past, this is no longer the case. Similarly equipped PC's cost roughly the same as their Mac counterparts. Benchmarks for Boot Camp XP Macs are now showing up and we'll just have to see how the performance compares to similarly equipped PC's.

And just what is the "average PC". Is it a $399 desktop? There is no comparing a Mac to a $399 desktop. In terms of reliability alone a Mac will trounce it. This is the case with most PC's when compared to Macs. This has to do with hardware/OS integration. But this thread isn't about the Mac OS. It's primarily about running Windows XP on the Mac. For me, I'd use it only for games and a few select programs that only run on Windows. If I only have to spend a couple hundred dollars for a copy of Windows XP in order to accomplish this, then it's worth it. In essence I get two high performance computers in one. I don't have to buy a cheap PC in order to do what I want in Windows... I can run it on my higher quality Mac for the price of a couple hundred bucks. And I save money on software like games (which cost more on the mac due to porting). Not only will I have access to all the really great Mac software, but now I will have access to the entire Windows catalog of software to run on the same machine. This has been one of the biggest complaints about buying a Mac and now it's gone completely.

And you must note that this will be the only way to do dual boot Mac/Windows. Apple will never release OS X for the average PC. It's just not going to happen.



Again, Mac hardware is not overpriced when compared to similarly equipped PC's. In fact, some companies have chosen Xserves over other servers for their distributed systems because Xserves are significantly less expensive.



You aren't really comparing a dual boot OS X/Windows XP system to a Windows/Linux dual boot system, are you?



The Xserve has made inroads in this area and Apple's sales of their XRaid storage systems more than doubled from 2004 to 2005 – from $78 million to $185 million in sales.



The everything on the Web thing was attempted by Microsoft and failed miserably.

The fact is that people are getting frustrated with Microsoft. Boot Camp gives those people an option to switch without giving up their Windows entirely. It also saves money for those people who don't really want to use Windows very much and will only dual boot for business or gaming reasons. They no longer have to have a separate computer to do that. So now those people who only buy a Windows machine because they have to for work can now buy a Mac and run Windows on it for work and OS X for home. This dual identity for the Mac, in my opinion, will increase Apple's marketshare.

Well first of all the design is superior. If you go spend some cash on a G5 they actually think about things like making sure the entire thing gets rid of heat efficiently, that compartments are segmented to eliminate dust, etc. They used to have a really cool diagram on their site but it isn't there anymore.

But the real advantage is that there are no unknowns with the combination of Mac hardware and Mac OS X. Hardware that has not been certified to work is not allowed. When you plug something into a Mac for the first time it just works whether it is a printer, a mouse, a monitor, memory, or a camera.

PCs have a very loose standard for "compatible" hardware and with windows you are forever messing around with drivers and versions of software. You might bring home a new printer and plug it in only to find out that you've got to go download a patch or hack something to make it work. Plug a printer into a Mac and you start printing without doing anything.

And then of course there is the OS itself - no adware, no viruses, no spyware. I've had my PowerBook for about 8 months now and something has got hung up exactly twice in that time - both times it was FireFox and a simple force quit solved the problem without taking the whole OS down with it.

At work I use Windows XP and I have to reboot because something has gotten hung up at least twice a week.

Will this add some benefit to buying a mac? If so, what?
As others have said the huge benefit here will be for people who are amenable to buying a Mac but haven't been able to in the past because they had to support and work with windows applications. Or perhaps because they love playing games. With the ability to dual boot you can get away from that.

However, dual booting is really just a hack. The real deal is virtualization. Virtualization allows you to run apps for another OS without rebooting. It looks like the first stab at it will be in Leopard - link.

What effect will this have on Apple's market share?
It is only going to increase. Apple will start taking market share from Microsoft and from companies like Dell and HP as well.

The reason why is their world class marketing. Just look at what they've done with iPods. They'll start aggressively marketing Macs at PC users and now that they can also support running windows through dual boot that is a selling point and a hurdle they've gotten over in getting them to switch.

Expect lots more "switch" type campaigns in the coming years.

Would you choose a Mac over a PC because of this new feature? If so or if not, why?
This feature is nice, but I went Mac about a year ago and I'm never going back and this had nothing to do with it obviously. The only place I have to use a PC is at work, I don't even have any in my home anymore. I really don't care too much about this feature because I've found that I don't need windows. I thought I would at first and was worried about it, but I don't - this feature would have provided a nice security blanket had it been available. There is nothing that I need to do (and I do a whole lot more than surfing and email) that I can't use my mac for with a comparable or better application.

Now what would cause me to trade in my PowerBook for one of the intel models is virtualization. There are a few windows applications it would be nice to run, but I don't want to have to reboot to do it.

There is nothing in that article to indicate that OS X Leopard will make use of virtualization. Dual Boot into Windows XP, however, will be a part of Leopard – Boot Camp is just the beta version. Parallels is a separate company and their virtualization software is available for intel Macs now. Here is a link to a video of Parallels virtualization at work:

Windows XP on Mac OS X using Parallels is FAST!

The only problem with virtualization at this stage is access to some of the computers hardware. While, I recognize that it is still a beta and this may change, I've read reports of no sound and an inability to access the physical CD-Rom drive. It also can't make full use of the video card so gaming in virtualization, at this point, is out. I do agree, however, that for most people in business situations, (once some of the other bugs have been worked out) virtualization will be the way to go.



While they may take marketshare from Dell and HP, this will have little effect on Microsoft, because with both virtualization and dual boot you still have to purchase Windows. This will increase Microsoft's marketshare. As more Mac users begin to use XP on their machines, Microsoft's marketshare increases.



Yes, as soon as the benchmarks are out for dual boot XP macs, you can be sure there will be some new Switch campaigns. I'd expect them in the coming months.

Sorry I grabbed the wrong link. This is the link I wanted.



Yes I understand this is a "rumors" site but I've been following them for a while and they've got a good track record of being accurate. Whether they are right about this specific thing - time will tell.

Will this add some benefit to buying a mac? If so, what?
It would for me - I have to use "Virtual PC" with Windows XP, an obscenely-overpriced emulator to use a particular Windows-based application that I can't live without. Problem is, it tends to lose my modem and other hardware. For absolutely everything else I use Mac. I have enough computer crashes at work, I have no desire to suffer the same at home. My Mac has crashed maybe once in a year.

What effect will this have on Apple's marketshare?
As others have said - up and up and up (hopefully).

Would you choose a Mac over a PC because of this new feature? If so or if not, why?
Just like Cube Jockey, I switched about a year ago and wouldn't go back anyway. But it really is a nice feature, and could cause others to switch I suppose.

This could be true or it could be just a reference to what we now know is Boot Camp, which will be a part of OS X. If virtualization will work seamlessly in OS X, I'd choose that over dual-booting any day. The benefit (and admitted downside) of dual-booting over virtualization is that there is no cross platform communication (at least on the Windows side). When the computer is booted in Windows, it is a Windows machine and when it is booted in OS X it is an OS X machine. This protects the Mac environment from infection. I don't want a clever cracker to be able to infect my OS X partition via Windows.

If Apple is indeed exploring virtualization, I hope they do so with some form of OS insulation in mind.

Interesting article. Thanks for posting it. However, this is market-speak designed to confuse.

Windowing, while interesting is not the real issue. The way security and ACLs are handled at the kernel level are - unless MS decides to pull an Apple and simply make a new operating system with no backward compatiblilty Windows will remain inherently "Stand-alone" and insecure.

It's interesting, but kind of the opposite of what I'm looking for.

I don't want to run a Windows OS on Mac hardware. What I want is to run the Mac OS on a non-proprietary PC that I built myself. I stopped buying computers years ago, and I hope never to buy another one. Instead I just buy parts and build my own. When it needs upgrading, I buy more parts and upgrade it. I love Mac OS X. What I don't love, and what's always kept me from buying a Mac, is their expensive proprietary hardware. And yes, I'm fully aware that Apples now run on Intel CPUs and mostly standard motherboards; but unless I've missed some big news, you still cannot install a Mac OS on a machine built by anyone besides Apple.

And to me, a difference which makes no difference, is no difference. I've never had a problem with heat or dust issues with my pc. None. Of, course, I take proper care to eliminate that kind of stuff when I'm building it to begin with.

And Windows has some certified hardware and drivers as well. Not sure what you mean by "forever messing around" with drivers and such. You load them once, and the hardware works. It's not like you have to load them every time you boot the pc up.


And there's no adware, viruses or spyware in WinXP either. Really, if all you want to do is spread fear, you're doing a great job. As for your hang-up problems in XP, it's most likely somthing in one of the programs you've got on the hard drive, similar to your problem on the MAC with FireFox. It's just a matter of finding the problem-child application.

Will this add some benefit to buying a mac? If so, what?

And here's where AuthorMusician's post comes into play. Like him, I won't buy a MAC, not because of the software, but because the damn hardware costs so much, compared to a pc.

For example, the current iMac 17, at $1299.00 sports the following specs:
17-inch widescreen LCD,
1.83GHz Intel Core Duo with 2MB shared L2 cache
512MB DDR2 SDRAM
160GB Serial ATA hard drive
Slot-load 8x double-layer SuperDrive (DVD/CD burner combo)
ATI Radeon X1600 graphics with 128MB GDDR3 memory
Built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0

Now, for comparison, I put together a PC, with prices taken from TigerDirect:
16x dvd/cd burner 39.99
intel MB/ Intel 3GHz proc / 512BM PC 3200 Ram 139.99
western digital serial ATA 400GB HD 209.99
RaidMax midtower case w/450watt PS 74.99
logitech bluetooth wireless keyboard/mouse/mediapad 119.99
soundblaster Audigy 5.1 59.99
Logitech THX certified 5.1 speakers 139.99
GeForce 7600GT 256MB GDDR3 memory 159.99
Acer 19" Widescreen LCD monitor 214.99
Windows XP Home 89.99

So, let's compare, shall we? The pc version has a faster burner, almost double the processor speed, more than double the hard drive size, better sound and speakers, twice the video memory on a faster board, and a larger monitor, for $50 bucks less.

I'm with Izdaari on this. If Apple really wanted to take away market share, they'd make the Apple OS available to those running Intel machines, because building a machine myself gets me more bang for my money. Otherwise, the company that's really go9ing to gain market share in this, is going to be Microsoft.

If you need a native Windows application to run on a Mac, you're going to need this new software, and a copy of XP. That can only help Microsoft's sales, I would think.

Well, let's take a look at the comparison, shall we?

1. DVD burner – Can you show me the 16x Dual Layer DVD burner for $39.99. I couldn't find one. I did find a 16x DVD burner for $39.99, but it wasn't dual layer. The Dual Layer Drive I saw was by Sony for $49.99. So, we'll lower your savings to $40 bucks.

2. You really aren't going to compare a 3Ghz Celeron processor to a 1.83Ghz Core Duo processor, are you? Please. That's two 1.83Ghz cores on a single processor. Besides, your memory is also slower on that motherboard. PC3200 (DDR) vs. DDR2. If it's the motherboard I saw for $139.99, it also had no bluetooth, so you'd have to buy a bluetooth adapter which will take up one of your USB ports (so what's the point) This adds about $40 bucks to your costs. Adding a comparable motherboard and CPU with comparable memory will cost you a few hundred dollars more. The processor alone will set you back about $350 dollars. So we'll low ball it at about $500 for a comparable motherboard w/ CPU.

That puts you at $500 bucks above the iMac.

3. If you are going to make an honest comparison you can't use Windows XP Home Edition. It lacks the features necessary to make an equal comparison with OS X. Mutliple Processor support for one, Fax capability, Encryption capability... and a number of others. Nope, you're going to have to add Windows Professional in order to make a fair comparison to OS X. And that'll add $50 bucks to your total.

So now you have your "superior" computer... and it costs $550 more than an iMac and you have to build it yourself. But what if something goes wrong with it? Let's add 3 years of AppleCare which will fix hardware problems for free and includes free telephone support... That'll cost us $169. So you will still have a better computer with no warranty for $381 dollars more... and you have to build it. Gee, what could I do with that $381 bucks... let's see:

I'll upgrade the Hard Drive to your 400GB for $209 – yes, it's possible to upgrade the hard drive if you like to tinker... I mean if you're building yours, I can at least install a hard drive, yeah? Okay, and I'll get the wireless keyboard and mouse... $118. Oh, and I'll splurge and get a 7.1 surround sound speaker system for $90 bucks.

So, now you've got a "superior" computer that will cost you $35 less than an iMac with all the above added. Oh, but wait. What about wireless networking? There goes your $35 bucks right there. See, I can move my iMac around. In fact, I know a coffee shop owner who brings his iMac out to the front so he can sit at a table, drink coffee, work on his desktop, and watch how the morning rush goes. When he's done, he can bring it back to his office.

Oh, and I forgot... you also don't have firewire. You'll need a firewire PCI card. That'll be another $40 or so.

So now you're about $40 more expensive than the iMac.

But wait, let's add Windows (Boot Camp is free and will be incorporated into the next version of OS X)... $139.99.

So, now I have a computer that is similar (slightly smaller display, slower graphics card, slower DVD burner – nothing critical) that costs about $100 more than yours but it does something yours will never do – it runs both OS X and Windows. How much value is added there? A couple grand, I'd guess. It's basically a Mac and a Windows PC – two different computers – in the same box. And I can choose which one I want to use by simply making a selection with the handy little Apple Remote.



They don't need to take away marketshare from Windows... they need to take marketshare from the people who make Windows boxes.

Your comparison is exactly why Apple will never release OS X for other PC's. They do not want to be responsible for the experience had by someone who builds a cheap PC and expects OS X to run well on it. That can only hurt their business. Besides releasing OS X for your everyday PC would hurt the sales of Mac hardware – which is where they make their money. They're not going to do that.



Apple makes it's money on the hardware... not the software. While Microsoft would gain marketshare in the OS market, Apple would make ground in the area that counts for them, the hardware market.

I am probably the least computer speak literate of this group posting- so please, forgive me if this is a stupid question- but does Autocad work the same on Mac, and is it the same price? That is an obscenely high priced program on PCs, and if it is the same on a Mac price wise, and the Mac was less likely to crash, well, i will probably go ahead with the mac if I start doing Autocad full time- but, if Autocad is PC only, and now can be made compatable to a mac, then I would have to vote "yes" on teh poll

You can run AutoCAD on an intel Mac, you just have boot into Windows XP to use it. Is an intel Mac running Windows XP less prone to crashing? I don't know – you are running Windows, after all, and Windows is what is more prone to crashing. The benefit is that you could run AutoCAD when you need to and then for most everything else, you could use OS X. The fewer programs you have on the Windows side, the less prone it is to crashing, I would imagine.