Windows on Apple hardware

Like many people the shipping broker Colin Nederkoorn would rather use OS/X, but wanted to run Windows XP on nice Apple hardware too. He started by offering a modest cash prize to the first person that could achieve it. Other people, equally interested in the solution, contributed to the prize.

Last Thursday, two software developers in Northern California, Jesus Lopez and Eric Wasterman, won the prize: A grand total of $13,854 for making Windows XP work on the new Intel-based Apple hardware. The fruit of their labor is open source and can be downloaded from OnMac.net.

Of course, Apple has no plans to support Windows on its hardware, although Apple’s Senior Vice President Phil Schiller was quoted in January as saying “If there are people that love our hardware but are forced to put up with a Windows world, then that’s OK.”

Yet running Windows on Apple hardware is clearly an important milestone for Apple and one that should not be overlooked. I would even go so far as to say that it’s a good idea for Apple to support Windows XP on their hardware officially. For years Apple has struggled to break a formidable barrier of entry in corporate America. That barrier, simply stated, is that corporations are not interested in purchasing hardware that cannot be redeployed. Employees that can legitimately use OS/X for their work are routinely denied requisitions for Apple hardware on the grounds that once the employee is gone, the hardware becomes “useless.” Since it can’t load Windows it cannot be redeployed to a Windows-using employee. As a result, Apple makes few inroads in corporate America. But gaining more sales into corporate America means more people exposed to OS/X. While some hardware might be “redeployed” the upside of having more people exposed to OS/X will, I believe, achieve greater gains in the long run.

On a personal note, I doubt I’ll ever boot Windows on my own Apple equipment. There is very little that I actually use Windows for — in fact, only two things come to mind: Development work that requires Internet Explorer (a trend that seems to be declining), and my favorite UML modeling software, Enterprise Architect (though I keep looking at Magic Draw’s OS/X-compatible tool). For these, Virtual PC is all I need — and I’m eagerly awaiting an Intel-compatible release.