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156 Comments
- stealthboy, on 10/12/2007, -6/+40Market share.... If there are 100 computers, let's say 50 are now macs and 50 are PCs, but something like 45 of the macs run windows apps, what's the marketshare? You certainly could look at the numbers and say 95% of the computers have windows apps. But also, 50% of the machines have OS X..... so even though it may not "hurt" windows market share, it seriously helps OS X marketshare.
- cheesy_1, on 10/12/2007, -9/+37Dvorak is a moron is all I can say: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1923151,00.asp
- joshwehatetech, on 10/12/2007, -3/+30It says virtualization, which will still require some kind of Microsoft license to run. How exactly does this hurt their market share?
--Josh - jbrjake, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21You guys are all paying too much attention to the journalist's fantasies and too little to the only FACT in the whole item: Apple is joining a benchmarking group, BAPCO. That's it. They could quite possibly be doing this to get some tests optimized for OS X, now that it runs on Intel boards. Seems a lot more likely than them committing to the current Windows-optimized benchmarks. But who knows? All this talk of virtualizations and native Windows support is still pure rumor as far as I know...though it would be awfully cool.
- joshwehatetech, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21Good point. The ultimate point is that it helps both companies really. Microsoft is getting an in on a system it wouldn't normally be on and Apple is getting people who might not normally run a Mac. When it comes down to $$ both win (as mentioned it helps Apple more though based on a higher influx of Windows users wanting to run Apple not vice versa)
--Josh - nigeltufnel, on 10/12/2007, -8/+22*sigh*
What this REALLY means is that Apple wants to benchmark its hardware against PCs, to demonstrate that their hardware beats PCs on their own terms.
Duh. - Olle, on 10/12/2007, -5/+15Why should Adobe bother having a native Mac OS X Photoshop application, if the windows version runs on Mac OS X just as well? Well, Adobe will probably not think like that, but others might.
Apple has undoubtedly reviewed these things and decided that it will be beneficial. But i'm sure they talked about it long and hard.
It will almost certainly help improve the Mac OS X market share, but it might erode the number of native applications. - lane.montgomery, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9One can only hope, but probably not. It sounds more like they are going to support windows on mac hardware by developing the drivers for it.
- superalamar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8minesweeper
- superalamar, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9It hurts dell, and HP and other hardware venders. If the mac can run windows but non apple PCs can't run osX it will make apples hardware much more likely to be purchased as the machien has more functionality. In fact, apple boxes with the option to boot into windows osx and the other various linux distros would be able to run just about any software thrown at them. It is a move that makes sense, and is long over due. They are on the intel chips, the box might as well make the most of them. This would bring me back to apple.
- panique, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7You guys are all missing the point. Think "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish". We're already past "Embrace" as all versions of OS X have embraced Windows technologies.
Extend will be running Windows applications either under Wine, some other API compatibility layer, or by using Virtualization to actually run Windows. I think virtualization will be Apple's choice, just to keep Microsoft from going bonkers while this phase plays out. The strong motivation to do this will be the ability to surf the web and use email safely by running those functions under OS X, and you can keep your legacy and in-house Windows apps running on the same box. The reduced support costs alone will motivate many enterprise customers to purchase Macs as their next platform.
Extinguish comes next, and goes something a little like this: "Well, now you guys have been using OS X for some time. You have already switched to Office:Mac and you're now using Mac versions of several other apps. Hou about having a look at porting all your in-house software to run under Cocoa? You could then stop paying for all those pesky Windows licenses you barely use any more." Such an undertaking will of course sound a lot better than it is, but that hasn't stopped many many similar projects in the past. A lot of companies, especially in financial services or those who are essentially directed by financial services companies (think publicly-traded companies) will spend vast sums of money if it can be demonstrated that their ongoing operating costs will be reduced by a significant factor larger than the investment. People will easily make the case for porting such apps, especially given NeXTStep's previous success on Wall Street. - geekee, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11"Is this the beginning of the end for Microsoft's juggernaut 95% market share?"
Not as long as Apple refuses to support non-Apple hardware. There's no way people are going to let one company become a hardware monopoly. - oneMadRssn, on 10/12/2007, -7/+12AutoCAD
Solidworks
Pro/E
Visual Studio
MatLab
DCplusplus
MS Paint (kidding) - aristan, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8They've seen rumors. So... the guys at ZiffDavis read Dvorak, who works for PC Magazine... which is published by ZiffDavis. Amazing! Glad to know that someone reads that magazine.
Seriously, I doubt we'll see XP/Vista running like OS9 in OSX. It makes much more sense for Apple to develop a way to run windows programs as OS X apps. That way they cut Microsoft out of the equation. - tejaycar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Which is what apple fan boys have been saying since the the beggining of time. 5 years ago it was OS X that was going to destroy the MS market share. Folks, nothing apple does will give them 50% market share this decade. However, I think they'll be getting a small bite more, and eventually things might even out. To be honest, I think MS has more controll of thier own future than apple does. Unless they continue to make dumb mistakes (which history suggests they might) they will never loose the majority share.
This even if they are an inferior OS - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Virtualization is a general term for running for software that allows one machine to run many instances of an OS or OSs. It's not something Microsoft invented or even does that well. It's been around on mainframes for ages. Linux has it with the Xen project. This article is sheer ridiculous speculation.
- zonk3r, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5and sadly microsoft publisher too. i work at a printing press and unfortunately we get a bunch of files made in publisher (which btw is NOT designed for publishing, printing or about anything else, ie, it's a piece of ***** program). no mac verson exists so we have to send it out to get a PDF made. it also knows nothing about color matching, screening, separations or just about anything else that relates to *real* printing.
it would also be helpful to run adobe pagemaker 7 for windows as sometimes pagemaker 7 for mac (a classic app) doesn't like the ttf fonts folks use in their documents. either that or force folks to use indesign which ain't gonna happen as folks pick up an old copy of pm7 for *much* cheaper than indesign and indesign seems daunting for many newbie designers...
but i digress... ;p - starmanjones, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5$500 on jobs. 2 minutes.
- manfesto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4There is one problem with Xen - Windows XP doesn't "officially" run. There are some hacked kernels out there, but Microsoft's license agreements are holding back a public release of XP for Xen.
//biggest problem with the "XP on Mac" solution thus far is that NO business will support a system based on a hack
Anyhoo, I don't personally see Apple officially supporting Xen (but I can dream, can't I?), but VMWare for OS X86 is on the way - and I'm sure a few illustrious hackers will get Xen running anyway unofficially. - EtherGnat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4If OSX runs Windows applications well, the developers will have less motivation to write Mac versions of software. If there are few compelling Mac applications there is a real danger there will be less demand for pricier Macintosh computers. The experience of running virtualized applications will never be as good as running native applications.
I'm not saying it's a sure thing, but it's the way it has happened in the past. Witness the rotting corpse of IBM's OS/2--also a more powerful OS that had native ability to run Windows applications. - passion, on 10/12/2007, -6/+9Just think of it like the Matrix. This allows users to take the blue pill, and break out of the software prison they've been living in to see what a truly elegant desktop user experience can be like. Then, they can tap back into the Matrix whenever they crave their virtual steak. Eventually, they'll start tapping into the Matrix less and less and just rely on the Mac exclusively - look what virtualization did for Classic... :)
Another analogy would be to think of this like the nicotine patch. It allows someone to stop doing a bad thing all the time, and yet they can still get their fix anytime they need it. - Iceduck, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Would be cool, but the notion that it would change Windows' marketshare drastically is way off IMHO. However, it could help Apple get the marketshare they deserve.
- joshwehatetech, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I guess I should add it used the words "speculation" on these 2 points so like most things that go as news these days, it is pure speculation.
--Josh - firefoxguy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4If this is the case and they can keep it secure, I think that it might get pretty close on percentage of computers with OSX and Vista
- anagami, on 07/02/2008, -2/+5if you use virutalization: no
if you use dual boot: yes - drn666, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Well, first off, my quad G5 is probably 'paster' than your PC.
Second off, my notebook is a dual core Intel system that says "MacBook Pro". It's probably one of the fastest portables you can buy for less than $5000.
Stop being clueless: google.com - jerwood, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Virtualization doesn't necessarily protect you from security problems. For the virtual machine to be useful, it would need some degree of access to the rest of the system. That access could allow the virtual machine to do naughty things. That said, I would think a properly sandboxed virtual machine would only be able to mess itself and any files you had specifically allowed it to access. Which of course could be ALL your files if you let it touch your whole drive (well, at least those that belong to you).
- yaphi, on 02/20/2008, -1/+4I'm with Olle. I don't want Windows apps running *within* the Mac OS. The main reason I switched to the mac was that I liked mac software better (TextMate, Adium, etc). I wouldn't want to lose out to Windows software replacing that.
Dual-booting Windows is great...giving software companies a chance to develop one app for both platforms sounds good on paper, but say goodbye to usability, and MacOS specific libraries such as CoreImage, etc. - cheesy_1, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6The thing about having Windows virtualization in Mac OS X is it completely gets rid of most Windows user's main argument for using Windows over Macs, which is usually something along the lines of "Well all the applications are for Windows not Mac". This is a lot less true now than 10 years ago, but still seems to be a major argument I hear.
If this is indeed true then as a rebuttal Mac OS X can simply say "Well Mac OS X can run every Windows program in addition to all the really cool Mac OS X programs, all in a single very nice operating system."
Additionally, now that Apple is switching to Intel processors these Windows apps will be able to run at nearly full speed as there is no processor instruction translation needed. PLUS if Apple uses Wine or something equivalent you won't even need a Windows license since it the code will just be a reverse engineered version of Windows, no Microsoft code at all. - Hercules, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Entertainingly, they will likely get Windows apps to run properly on OS X before Vista can run them properly.
Ah well... that's the difference between focused management, and unfocused behemoths. - KenLin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Digged this story as inaccurate.
Market share is defined as # of PC shipped (with installed OS). Even if all Macs shipped today on are capable of running Windows, this alone by itself does not change the market share as they are OS X machines. Apple enthusiasts have long claimed that "market share" figures are inaccurate Macs have longer useful life i.e. one that is capable of running, say OS X 10.1 may still be very usable running OS X 10.4 but that is not true for PC with Windows Me to Windows XP. Still, that does not affect the shipping figures. - MrCobaltBlue, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Dvorak is a tool.
- superalamar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Comments like that do the platform more harm than good in my opinion. The commercial windows emmulators that have existed for years for the platform didn't write themselves....
Apple is a hardware company, it makes sense for them to therefore produce the most functional box possible. Have no fear, they will never close down software development
this move will have apple taking back some marketshare, (if it is for real) by bringing home a good contengent of customers who left the platform, or have been forced to spend money on a windows box for various mundane but nessisary niche tasks. - m99stump, on 07/29/2008, -1/+3People also need to get with the deal that gamers can be happy on a Mac, I know I am on my x86 iMac :)
Sure, not every game makes it, but to me the PC upgrade game is becoming so expensive I just can't really keep up anymore so I'm going to have to settle for say a 360 and hope that games like Spore hit Mac (which being such a big game, I bet it will)
Anything that helps game developers is a good thing, even if the Mac never becomes the primary uber gaming platform. - stmiller, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2If only mac had MS Paint...
/sarcasm - durandal2005, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Ah, but what if the rumored April Fool's announcement is going to be Steve Jobs getting up on stage and announcing that iWork is now a full-fledged office suite to compete with MS Office? There was a rumor about this a while back: Apple's working on an office suite and is deliberately leaking OS X x86 so the hackers will work out the bugs for them. It has to deny this, naturally, or what you described is sure to happen. Then, in one fell swoop, it releases OS X for generic hardware and announces their office suite.
But that's just unfounded rumor. Personally, although I'd like to see it happen, it won't: MS Office has become far too standard, and MS will just break any attempt to make Apple's suite compatible. - xioner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Interesting to know they joined that group... but the title is innacurate. The article has 2 lines casually mentioning rumors of virtualization.
- cgseller, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I agree totally. This piece of journalism is pure conjecture at best. How can you conclude that they will be writing drivers for Windows because they joined the group. This article is a fantasy at best. "Apple is committed to windows based performance testing". That is not an absolute conclusion. They could be joining to just be involved. They could be joining to learn more about the other side or to provide valuable counterpoints to their methodologies.
This is nothing more than speculation and is presented as overzealous sensationalism.... - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Anybody remember the DOS card in Macintosh Performa? Full circle. This isn't just a PC Exchange control panel and the ability to read DOS formatted disks like in Classic.
"Why is it so hard for macheads to understand..."
Don't ask that question and act the same way about Windows... *wags finger* - chriszma666, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Uh...you can run Matlab on Mac. This isn't going to happen anyway, it's just one of the hundreds of rumors that become so popular thanks to sites like digg.
- MrDiaz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3That'll be really cool, having both powerful OS into one, what else could be better? Combining the stability of MacOS and the compatibility and usage of Windows software together will be indeed an amazing feature. Let's see how this ends up.
- brentz0r, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2use shakespeer for dc++
- devoinregress, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2With Intel chips it is only a matter of time untill you can do all of these.
- alex007, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wow great point from a developer point of view. Imagine if Adobe decided that Photoshop runs good enough without porting to native. Over time you'd see people start migrating aways from OS X. Currently, developing for Windows is way sweeter than for Apple. Not to mention how Apple devs have to put up with architecture changes...
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1VirtualPC doesn't run "vitalization", they run emulation. Virtualization allows the target apps to run semi-natively, which Windows apps can not do on a PowerPC processor. Also, don't compare Apples (sorry for the pun) to oranges. Microsoft sells an OS, Apple sells hardware _and_ an OS. Microsoft's market share can't be compared to Apple's because you can't compare hardware to software. It's like saying RCA sells more TVs than Toyota sells cars. So what? No comparison. Also, fact check aside, at least run spell check.
- JohnnySoftware, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Running MS-Windows on Mac hardware is not all that exciting.
People have been doing it for years. The MS-Windows apps do not get any more powerful. They don't take on Mac OS capabilities, for the most part. The handy things you can do with text fields of apps that use the Cocoa GUI are not enabled for MS-Windows apps.
It's kind of like running legacy DOS apps in a Windows box. About 3/4 times when I have done it the last few months, it has just been to run the 2nd Tuesday of the month "updates" so I get the Windows bug fixes. You think you will use this feature. But once you have it, you really just don't feel like it.
Having the Macintosh computer actually boot MS-Windows instead of Mac OS X would be even worse.
Also, this digg violates Digg rules by posting a link to a weblog instead of a true source - unless the blog made up the information. Considering they took a copy of a montage of TRADEMARKED images from the BAPCo website, and created a modified version by putting Apple Computer's TRADEMARK image on it, that is the least thing someone could take issue with. I assume the BAPCo image itself was trademarked.
They even copied the little TM symbols that are stamped next to some of the company logos.
But, it gets even more incredible. The BAPCo website's News page makes no mention of Apple whatsoever. The word "apple" doesn't appear on the page at all, even as their favorite snack.
This whole thing looks sketchy. April 1 is several days off. Looks like someone jumped the gun. Hard to see why so many people dugg this. The blog looks more like a crime scene than a news scene. - panique, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Sorry Fazz, don't let the fact that there is talk about running Windows side-by-side with Mac OS trick you. That was a different circle because you basically had to pay the price for two personal computers, and you were married to running Windows on a PC with anemic performance. There also was no strong motivation NOT to use Windows.
The current circle is the hardware costs are significantly less to run both operating systems. OS X is a "real" OS whereas Mac OS 7.x was still pretty much a toy and had some pretty significant problems. And the current and continuing security problems in Windows granting root to any drive-by hacker are a strong incentive to use something else. A virtualization layer would be a fine detox tool for your average Windows junkie. Let them taper off, change their habits, and one day when they don't even notice, just remove Windows altogether.
I can't wait for some of my clients to get ready for new computers. This is exactly where we are going. - drag, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Intel and AMD have added extensions to their 'next generation' of proccessors in order specificly enable support for unported software on Xen.. such as Windows XP.
No hacks, no licensing violations or questionable drivers. It will 'just work'.
On the next gen cpus you WILL be able to get Windows to run on Xen.
It's nice when you have AMD and Intel both competiting to support virtualization features. Right now this Xen and Vmware is stuff is the 'in thing' for new enterprise deployments. Easy virtualization of x86 should prove to be fairly popular, if not a bit revolutionary, on how servers and such are handled.
For instance one of the major 'neat' features of Xen is the ability to actually migrate running operating systems from one machine to another machine with NO DOWNTIME. That is if your facing a hardware failure you can migrate off of the hardware without ever shutting down! This works transparently and quickly. The unaviability of services is measured in milliseconds and it's much quicker then it would take for even tcp packets to time out.
:) - alex007, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I know about Wine. lol. Either way I believe Microsoft is not going to be too happy to see one of their minor competitors grow quickly.
- Lynxpro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1
OS X isn't a true 64-bit operating system (yet). You have 64-bit extensions in OS X to support your 64-bit G5 processor(s). -
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