I retired from personal blogging in July 2008.
But you can find me over at http://blog.xero.com.
Wow. I’ve loaded up Parallels on my MacBook and running Windows XP in a Parallels Virtual Machine.
I’m stunned by how good this is. I can access my Desktop Widgets, Expose works, Speed is good and Growl alerts overlay. I was worried that it might be slow so was considering BootCamp. Not necessary. I’m using the XP VM for LiveMeeting, Visio and Outlook. This allows the best of both worlds. Those couple of Win apps that were holding you back are on your machine.
Talking to few people today it became clear the model of virtualizing/marginalizing Windows has potentially significant consequences. You could simply back up your XP image every week. Or for new staff just copy a standard image. This is end user driven Virtualization. Not driven by server hardware optimization but by user liberation. Sure another layer just got added to the stack but the benefits of this additional abstraction are significant.
Also significant is that that Apple have a clear advantage here. OSX readily hosts Windows but the reverse does not apply.
As AAPL dips while they too sort out their stock option issues there may be a great buying opportunity. Having experienced Parallels I have no doubt Apple is poised for significant market share growth. The trickle to OSX is about to be a flood.
As veggiedude says: It is no longer “Mac vs PC†- Apple has changed the rules of the game. It is now a question of “Mac and PC†vs just “PCâ€.
Update: Dave5 noticed too … MacOS X + Parallels == Kick Ass
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You chaps should check out “Crossover” and boot your copy of XP altogether. “Cider” also looks promising.
If you are running XP in a VM on OSX to get the apps you want like outlook etc… Why not just run XP? If you like the mac hardward use bootcamp. Are there _really_ that many advantages to OSX over XP?
Chris you missed the point of the post.
Apple just got a delisting warning, if that does trigger a fall on Monday trading it might be a nice time to jump in. But right now at $63 they trade at a PE of 29.6 vs Dell’s 14.8 and MSFT’s 20.4. Their profit margin is also 9.6% vs MSFT’s 28.5% and Dell’s 6.4%. MSFT is trading at $24 at the moment with a profit margin like that and more cash than most governments. From a technology point of view obviously Apple looks like they are rolling, but from a financial point of view, it might be a nice time to buy more MSFT.
[...] Another week into using my MacBook for my combined Mac and Windows experience and I’ve notice that my Mac has become my constant companion. [...]