>What Schiller actually said was more vague. He said Apple would not >SUPPORT windows. He then added Apple would do nothing to prevent it, and >that some users undoubtably would install windows on the Mac. > >Consdering the R&D cost savings of having Intel do motherboard design, I >would say the chances are extremely high that, across the Mac product >line, Windows will install out of the box.
I'm not convinced that will be the case... although I certainly hope it will be. I currently have to carry two laptops. One for Mac, and one for Win XP. I'd love to be able to buy a Mac laptop, and have the option of simply dual booting into Windows for the few times I need it. (or better yet, I hope Apple takes advantage of Intel's licensing with VMWare, and makes "Classic" for Intel OSes... so you can run Windows in a much faster, much more compatible "Virtual PC" environment without having to actually shut down OS X. As long as I can have apparently direct hardware access as VMWare is able to fake, and do it without a serious performace hit like VPC has, then I'd much rather do it in a window then as a dual boot). I interpereted Schiller's comments to be more "we aren't designing the Mac to work with Windows, and we aren't going to do it, but I'm not going to say it isn't possible, because there is a really good chance someone else may try to do it, and we aren't going to stop them, and I don't want to go on record saying it can't or won't be done and then be proven wrong" Here is his exact comment, so others can form their own opinions: >After Jobs' presentation, Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller >addressed the issue of running Windows on Macs, saying there are no plans >to sell or support Windows on an Intel-based Mac. "That doesn't preclude >someone from running it on a Mac. They probably will," he said. "We won't >do anything to preclude that." However, Schiller said the company does not >plan to let people run Mac OS X on other computer makers' hardware. "We >will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac." Like I said, I'm not convinced it will work out of the box, although like I also said, I rather hope it will, as I could use that ability. I'm certainly going to keep my fingers crossed that it will. I can bet that OS X runs right now on generic PC hardware. Apple has been doing it internally for years, and I can't imagine they built special Intel hardware just to get OS X to run. I'm sure OS X for Intel, by default, runs on any old generic PC (with obvious limits to what has driver support). I'm really REALLY curious if the developer release runs on generic PC hardware. I'd think Apple put something in to prevent it, otherwise I don't see why they would be issuing machines to go with the OS. Of course, that could be little more then a security dongle card or serializing the version of OS X to work with only the Intel CPU it was issued with... all Intel CPU's have for a while had a serial number accessable via software. I am really anxious to see what Apple is going to do with the Intel Mac. Are they going to make more or less PC Clones, or are they going to build specialized hardware. It may be cheaper to buy Intel motherboards... but Apple isn't doing this for cost savings, they are doing it because the PPC is a dead end for what Apple wants to do in the future (in fact, reports have it that the Intel CPUs are actually going to cost Apple MORE per CPU then the PPC does). Also, I suspect Intel wants this as much, if not more then Apple. Intel has some really neat stuff that they can't get anyone interested in, because MS doesn't care. And if MS doesn't care, then the PC makers don't care. Apple is much more willing to play with and put new technology to use. Think about USB. Intel invented it, and it sat unused for years because PC makers didn't care. As soon as Apple started using it, suddenly USB was a hot item. So if Intel is pushing to get new stuff used, then that probably dictates building custom hardware, as none of the generic hardware currently supports it. Intel wants their new toys to get used. They don't care about getting Apple's 4% market share of CPUs, they care about getting a company to use the new toys, and be open to discuss what other cool things can be done... and make them hot items and popular, so the other 95% of the computer world will want them too. MS doesn't do this for Intel. So Intel went to someone that would. This is GOOD for Apple, because Intel will put their marketing muscle behind the Mac, and start ignoring MS. Unfortunatly, Intel doesn't care about what OS is out there, they care about selling chips. So if MS suddenly gets scared, and gets their act together, Intel will drop Apple like a hot potato and go back to working with the people that can hand them 90% of the computing world on the first try. But seeing as MS has never inovated, they've only ever duplicated... I suspect that outcome is fairly unlikely to happen. Intel will like Apple for a long time to come. Its good for Intel, and good for Apple, and good for us (well, ok, not good for *us* the Emailer users, we are screwed, but good for us the Mac users) -chris <http://www.mythtech.net> ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe send a mail message with a SUBJECT line of "unsubscribe" to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
