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No Virtual PC for Intel-based Macs

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the too-hard dept.

Techie writes "Microsoft has decided not to move forward with a version of Virtual PC for the Intel-based Macintosh. The amount of time it would take to bring Virtual PC to Intel would be roughly equivalent to creating the product from scratch, Scott Erickson, director of product management and marketing for Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit, told eWEEK. The article says Microsoft will also be discontinuing support of Visual Basic scripting in the next version of Office for Mac." From the article: "As cross-platform compatibility remains a top priority at Microsoft, Erickson says that as the company develops the next version of Office for Mac, the files will continue to be compatible across platforms, including with the 2007 Microsoft Office System for Windows. VB macros within files will not be accessible and users will not be able to view or modify them. However, the files themselves can be edited without affecting or changing the macros. "

4 of 296 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Less software? by diersing · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wouldn't have anticipated someone saying cross-platform compability is a top priority while dumping a cross-platform compability tool for reasons of it being too hard.

  2. Hold the conspiracy theories... by itsdapead · · Score: 5, Informative

    What some of the pundits (on Macrumours and elsewhere) seem to be forgetting is that what VirtualPC does (runs x86 code on a PowerPC by emulating the x86 processor in software) is technically very different to what Parallels and VMWare do (allow x86 code to run "natively" within a virtual sandbox) - even if the end result (Windows running in a window on your Mac) is similar. A simple port of VPC to Mactel would have its ass handed to it by Parallels and VMWare. So when MS say:

    The amount of time it would take to bring Virtual PC to Intel would be roughly equivalent to creating the product from scratch

    ...they probably have a point.

    --
    In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
  3. newspeak by Eivind · · Score: 5, Funny
    VB macros within files will not be accessible and users will not be able to view or modify them. However, the files themselves can be edited without affecting or changing the macros.

    This must be some new and novel definition of "compatible" of which I was previously unaware.

    MS-Office --- the office-suite that is not even compatible to the same version of itself .

    Hilarious.

  4. Cross-Platform Compatibility? by Gleng · · Score: 5, Funny
    "As cross-platform compatibility remains a top priority at Microsoft"

    Great. Now I have to spend the next 20 minutes scraping coffee and lung material off of my keyboard and monitor.

    --
    "Proudly Posting Without Reading The Article"