Apple releases “Boot Camp” for dual-booting Mac OS X and Windows XP

Utility brings master plan more into focus

In a surprising and bold move, today Apple released a public beta of a utility called Boot Camp, which allows Intel-based Macs to dual-boot Mac OS X and Windows XP. This is surprising because Apple managed to do the one thing that so many people had been clamouring for, and bold because it means that Apple is rolling up its sleeves and getting serious about fighting back against the pounding they’ve been suffering from Microsoft since the Mac was first introduced in 1984.

Boot Camp is an interesting tool, because it removes a barrier that a lot of people have with getting a Mac. In fact, it makes them far more appealing—why buy a Dell that only runs Windows when you can buy a Mac that will run Mac OS X and Windows? With Boot Camp, the value of an Intel-based Mac has increased significantly.

Over the past few weeks, there had been a lot of effort invested in trying to get Windows XP to boot on an Intel-based Mac, with one person successfully pulling it off. A recent study by research analysis firm Needham and Co. found that “When presented with the possibility of a Mac running Windows applications, the mean liklihood of purchasing a Mac rose almost 20 percent, while the percentage of Windows users who would definitely buy a Mac rocketed from 1.8 percent to 13.5 percent.” Overall, this can only be good for the Mac platform.

While being a public beta for Mac OS X 10.4 “Tiger,” Boot Camp is going to be built-in to the next version of Mac OS X, codenamed “Leopard”, which should be released later this year. The big question will be whether or not they’ll end up updating Boot Camp by then to allow it to boot Windows Vista. (Which, of course, assumes that Vista will ever actually be released.)

Apple’s death knell?

Many people think that this is actually a bad move; that Apple has just put the first nail in their own coffin. (Now where have I heard that one before…?) They claim that with this, people will gravitate away from running Mac OS X on their computers, and that people will stop writing software for the Mac since they can just write for Windows and be done with it. I don’t think this is going to happen. As C.K. Sample, III put it:

People made these same dire predictions when RealPC and VirtualPC and all those other emulators came out. They made the same predictions during that odd time in the 90s when you could purchase a PC computer on a card that you shoved into your Mac to dual boot. It hasn’t happened yet (in fact there is more Mac software than ever before today because of Apple’s growing marketshare) and it isn’t about to happen. As long as Apple is in a state of growth, there is more money to be made selling to Apple and software companies will continue to do so.

(Wow, I hadn’t thought of that 486 PC card for a few years…)

Spread the word

So at this point, we know two things: that people are more willing to get a Mac if they can run Windows on it, and that we’re sick of being called on to help fix our friends’ and families’ Windows machines. Wouldn’t it be great if we could get these people to switch? I don’t know about you, but it sure would make my life easier.

And Apple knows this. They’ve put up a Tell a Friend web page so that you can quickly and easily let these people know—it can only help.

So what are your thoughts?