Steve Jobs set the computer world on fire last week with the release of software that will allow users to run the Windows XP operating system on Intel-based Macs.
The new feature, called Boot Camp, installs the required software to install and boot Windows and will be a built in feature of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, scheduled to ship at the end of this year.
"The release of Boot Camp by Apple is an interesting turn of events in computing," said Stephen Hackett, sophomore journalism major at The University of Memphis and senior contributing writer at The Daily Mac. "It gives the user freedom to use both platforms as needed on a single machine."
This will allow people who want to switch to using Macintosh computers the ability to use their windows only applications, Hackett said.
"People have been very excited about getting both operating systems to work on the same machine for a while now," said Peter Myers, computer systems analyst. "Before the official Intel version of Mac was even released, the underground got a hold of the OS X and started hacking it to try and run XP illegally."
An unofficial competition has been ongoing since the creation of the new Mac to see who can be the first to integrate XP onto the system. The contest ended late last month when an unnamed hacker who goes by the Web handle "narf" successfully ran XP on a Mac and won $14,000 in donated money. Apple released an official version a couple weeks later, according to Myers.
"A lot of people want to buy a Mac because it's such a good system, but they end up going with a PC so they can network and run their applications," said Eric Jannsen, online creative editor for The Commercial Appeal. "This is pretty much the end of that excuse. Now you can do whatever you want."
The next generation of Macs should have the ability to run windows natively, according to Jannsen.
"People like me who use a Mac as their main workstation and a PC for web testing and other things won't have to do that anymore," Jannsen said.
Still, there are some potential problems with the new technology.
"One of the possible downsides is that the development of some Mac programs may go to the wayside, since new Mac users can simply reboot, launch Windows and use these applications," Hackett said.
The biggest problem, however, is an age-old one: viruses.
"This opens up Mac users to Windows viruses on their XP systems, and that could have far-reaching consequences," Hackett said.
These complications will likely not stop many Mac owners from trying the XP operating system out on their computer.
"The boundaries and obstacles to moving to a Mac system are getting smaller," Myers said. "The next desktop I get will now definitely be a Mac and I've never bought one in my life."
