Posted on 04/21/2006 2:25:54 PM PDT by HAL9000
Excerpt -
~ snip ~But what I believe Apple will push as its core strategy is what's behind Door Number Three -- something completely different for those who may not want to run Windows Vista, but want to run Windows XP, instead.
XP is strangely compelling on Apple hardware, primarily because most users will already have XP licenses they can transfer and applications they not only own but are familiar with as well. Many people might argue, too, that OS X 10.4 (or 10.5) has many features slated to be coming in Vista, so running XP atop 10.4 could be as good or better than moving to Vista at all.
Now for the interesting part: I believe that Apple will offer Windows Vista as an option for those big customers who demand it, but I also believe that Apple will offer in OS X 10.5 the ability to run native Windows XP applications with no copy of XP installed on the machine at all. This will be accomplished not by using compatibility middleware like Wine, but rather by Apple implementing the Windows API directly in OS X 10.5.
Huh?
~ snip ~
(Excerpt) Read more at pbs.org ...
IBM already tried this. Microsoft simply tweaked the memory model and broke the compatibility.
The market conditions are different now, and the technologies are mature. I think this plan would work well for Apple.
Sure, you had to already knew about this. The question is if Bill G is going to get a kickback for helping Apple set it up. Because it will be smoothly implemented, no reverse engineer hack BS on the Mac I'm sure, that's for the Linux clowns. If they handle it right there's a great liklihood my next computer will be Apple, just like my first one was. That I owned, of course. I'm already sort of looking forward to it.
The Windows API!!!
Just off hand that doesn't make any sense to me. Could there possibly be a Windows API? Windows is a large and complicated system not just a group of software defined interfaces. I'm not a programmer (at least not a real one) so go gently on me if I'm way off base here.
We are in the realm of speculation now. Some form of hardware virtualization must be implemented in addition to the high-level APIs in order to fully emulate Windows. But it seems feasible for a well-funded company like Apple to do it.
... or Apple selling an OS with all the vulnerabilities of Windows AND Mac machines ...
I'd seen some talk about implementing WINE on Macs, but Cringely takes the concept farther than I had considered.
Apple wants to win customers who are currently using Windows, so this idea makes a lot of sense. It could be cheaper than getting a Vista PC, and work better too.
HAL - check out "VT" and "hypervisor".
Just to clarify, I understand VT is not the same as provding Microsoft programming interfaces, which would be a nightmare. The concept is, and has been, "integerated realtime duplicity", which Cringely is just now figuring out, but virutalization is how this will be achieved, and has been decided for some time, IMO.
Maybe. A lot of people get licenses via OEM, and IIRC those are getting pretty restrictive these days.
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