Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft's Virtualization Stance Eying Apple?
Pisces writes "Over the past several days, Microsoft has flip-flopped on virtualization in Vista, with one ascribing the change in policy to concerns over DRM. A piece at Ars Technica raises another, more likely possibility: fear of Apple. Apple is technically an OEM, and could offer copies of Vista at a discounted price. 'All of this paints a picture in which Apple could use OEM pricing to offer Windows for its Macs at greatly reduced prices and running in a VM. The latter is absolutely crucial; telling users that they need to reboot into their Windows OS isn't nearly as sexy as, say, Coherence in Parallels. If you've never seen Coherence, it's quite amazing. You don't need to run Windows apps in a VM window of Vista. Instead, the apps appear to run in OS X itself, and the environment is (mostly) hidden away. VMWare also has similar technology, dubbed Unity.' Is Microsoft terrified of a world where Windows can be virtualized and forced to take a back seat to Mac OS X or Linux?"
...with people using the lower-priced versions of Vista in virtualization environments they don't understand - on any platform - and then expecting support in such environments.
Obviously, there is nothing technical preventing a person from using any version of Vista in virtualization, and nothing at all, including the license, preventing usage of any version of Vista in Boot Camp.
I can't see a scenario where Apple would be interested in becoming a Windows OEM, supporting Windows, etc. Apple is more content with knowing that users in supported enterprise/academic/government environments can get Macs and use nifty technologies like Parallels, VMware, Boot Camp, etc., but isn't interested in getting into the Windows game itself.
One interesting item of note is that at many sites with Microsoft Volume Licensing Agreements, such as our own, Windows XP Pro and Windows Vista Enterprise are available essentially for free (just the cost of the media) for all departmentally-owned computers - including usage in virtualization, and including usage on Intel-based Macs.
So there are plenty of environments already that are very much taking advantage of this. Microsoft might not shed a tear if its licensing policy for Vista Home editions makes it a little harder financially for some people to justify the jump to Mac, but I doubt that's their primary focus.
Also, Apple doesn't really want to make it too easy for people to run Windows and Windows apps - just when they really need to. The idea is to bring more users to Mac OS X, so that app developers will bring apps to Mac OS X, which use all the nifty Mac OS X functionality. Who wants to run on a great OS (assuming that's the reason you switch) with all of your apps running in some Windows layer? Besides, many people who think they "need" Windows really don't, but the knowledge that they can run Windows if they needed to gets them over the hurdle. Or maybe the run Windows for a while, and realize they can duplicate everything they need and then some in OS X.
That said, yes, the seamless desktop integration features of Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion are really impressive. You can, for the most part, use Windows apps and Mac OS X apps seamlessly, side by side, with Dock integration, and even the ability to specify which kinds of documents open in which environment when double-clicked.
In any event, there are other issues here on both sides.
Yes.
Why bother.
Is Microsoft afraid of Apple? Not sure. I'm beginning to wonder how much Microsoft is like the United States these days. Think about it. A monopoly with unfair advantages set long ago. Desperate to crush anything that could threaten that in the smallest way. Ruthless, with little to no regard as to what the rest of the world..err market thinks. A country err competitor steps in with something new and innovative, something different? Well, if we have no use for it and can't copy it, crush it! Maybe I've just woken up on the wrong side of the bed?
This is the "half-empty" view. The "half-full" full is that Microsoft welcomes such virtualization in the sense that it's product will be on more computers than ever before and may even have the *gasp* opposite effect of what people think... That is, maybe someone switches back to Windows after running it in a virtual machine. Even at discounted OEM prices, it is still generating revenue that otherwise would not have been there.
"Is Microsoft terrified of a world where Windows can be virtualized and forced to take a back seat to Mac OS X or Linux?" ...afraid of a world where anyone can obtain a copy of OSX and run it on a white box system instead of the "blessed" Jobsian hardware. Microsoft doesn't want users to virtualize Windows on other operating systems and Apple doesn't want users to run copies of OSX on white box systems. Stalemate.
It's still a sale of windows, and it's still perpetuating windows lock in.
Microsoft makes even more money if Apple puts Vista on every computer. It's an untapped market. Seems like it would be good for Microsoft.
That, and, umm, wouldn't such a move sort of alienate the Developer mindshare for OSX? I guess I don't grok the incentive to help nudge Win32/64 developers to download Xcode and go to town if they see that they can continue to use Visual Studio .NET and just hum along in building apps that compile once but run on both platforms.
Apple (or rather, the friendly folks who make Parallels) could use that as a stop-gap (a couple-years' long one) to get behind pushing WINE, CrossOver, Cedega, etc etc... if indeed that's where they're wanting to go.
I like the angle, it has appeal, but it seems more damaging in the long run than to simply work on increasing marketshare among customers to the point where Windows-only dev shops are forced to take a good hard look at coding for OSX for competitive edge and survival reasons.
Besides... if Apple really wanted to give incentives, they could/should push for building tools that make cross-compiling hella easier, with maybe an IDE that can replace VS .NET on Windows entirely, say, with a modified Xcode that --oh by the way-- has a handy and nearly automatic suite of tools to make compiling OSX apps easier for the dev who uses it.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I don't know how many times this has been said, but Microsoft is a software vendor, not a hardware one. If they get to sell to Apple users too, then they make more profit. Who cares if Apple sells Vista OEM? The reason Microsoft HAS oems is because they still do make a profit off it. More importantly, this would nearly eliminate reasons for developing software for mac altogether for third party developers - they'll get practically the same penetration if they code just for windows and have Mac users just use Parallels.
I am of the honest opinion that the day Mac starts bundling Vista, or selling it OEM, etc. is the day that Microsoft breaks open bottles of wines and drinks to success.
My thoughts exactly
Well, not exactly...
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
If anyone is terrified at virtualization, it's Apple. They are the only OS that you can't run in a VM without resorting to 3rd party hacks that may or may not work with your hardware. I had been trying to install OSX in VMware off and on for several years now, to have a place to compile mac versions of some projects I'm working on. Unfortunately I haven't had much luck. The most recent attempt was able to boot up OSX and run it very well, but unfortunately completely missing network support and other such means of communicating back to the host OS, and creating and mounting ISO images of my source tree to compile stuff on it just isn't an option. Were apple to embrace such support, VMWare and similar programs could support it natively. They won't though, because they fear exactly what this article claims MS fears. If you can run Apple software on your non Apple hardware, you have no use for Apple. Only for MS, virtualization isn't as devastating to their business, because they are a software company, and can still sell software, while Apple needs to sell you artificially proprietary hardware, and even though their software is very good, they rely on having you locked in to their hardware.
Nope, as long as they *control* the virtualization. It's much like MS being afraid of IE running on Linux: They would LOVE it. Expect a virtualization-friendly Windows, maybe even free (with an small F). It would not be "the real thing", of course, just enough to get people hooked and asking for more.
One interesting item of note is that at many sites with Microsoft Volume Licensing Agreements, such as our own, Windows XP Pro and Windows Vista Enterprise are available essentially for free (just the cost of the media) for all departmentally-owned computers - including usage in virtualization, and including usage on Intel-based Macs.
Even under the volume licensing agreement, each separate copy of Windows that gets installed still does have to be accounted for, and paid for... just because you're not the one who has to do the accounting and paying doesn't mean that the license is free at all. I'm the one in our company who has to do this job, and I can't seem to get it thru the thick heads of our junior staff here that despite the fact that we have an MS enterprise licensing agreement in place, that it doesn't mean that they can go about willy-nilly installing various MS software anywhere and everywhere they please. It still must be done in a strict accounting and inventory managed way, and each piece of MS software installed onto a pile of hardware must be justified by proper business authorization, and approved by a manager with budget authority *BEFORE IT GETS INSTALLED* because at the end of each fiscal year cycle, we still have to write a check to MS for whatever got deployed.
i already run osx and suse on windows big deal
this seems to be the only sane reason for their changing position recently,
... me however .. ahem.
DRM? come on, if people are going to ignore the DMCA do you really think that they will be bothered by the (probably (location dependent) worthless/illegal) licence agreement
someone like Apple wont dare break it
obFuturama...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Perhaps the real problem is that Microsoft priced its Vista products at such a premium price, that folks don't find the features worthwhile. Now, they feel forced to drive the higher priced products by not allowing the Basic to be virtualized. I don't need all the bells and whistles of Premium, I just want to run some software in a VM environment.
MS is once again flexing its monopoly muscles to force end customers to pay higher prices to get stuff they don't really need/want.
If my understanding is correct, OS/2 was provided its own implementations of Windows APIs. This is unsustainable and the cost easily overcomes the benefits of the platform. In the Apple scenario, the virtualized environment is the real thing, third parties provide that environment, and Apple continues to develop their platform in blissful ignorance while end-users get a universal platform. I would otherwise be very much inclined to agree with you, but I think these subtle differences will cause a positive outcome (depending on how you look at it).
Why bother.
That's the first decent explanation I've seen of why MS would be against use of Windows in a VM. Running Windows apps "natively" under OSX would be a real win for Apple.
My Journal
There are a couple of major problems with this analysis:
:)
> Apple is technically an OEM, and could offer copies of Vista at a discounted price.
Microsoft, in the past and at present, has used OEM contracts as their major tool for consolidating their hold on the industry. Their OEM agreements have contained such provisions as "if you want preferred pricing, you can't sell computers that run any other operating system." Only for very, very large computer makers such as Dell and HP -- where Microsoft wants to be because there's huge volume -- do they relax these demands. The likelihood of Microsoft offering Apple an OEM contract is extremely low if MS thought it would be a threat.
Anyway, it's the business market, not the Joe Pirate market, that MS is concerned about.
> Instead, the apps appear to run in OS X itself, and the environment is (mostly) hidden away.
Except for, you know, the general crappiness of the apps.
I think what MS fears is what a lot of people already know: the main thing that keeps Apple out of the business market is that there's always one or two apps you need that only run under Windows, or some web site you need to access that only works properly with IE. OSX is more reliable, easier to support, and once you've learned the tools it's somewhat easier to manage configuration over a bunch of machines than Windows. If I could use a Macbook every day and run IE and a couple of other specialty apps alongside my OSX apps, my business' next hardware purchases would be from Apple and not from HP as they have been in the past. We already have no intention of upgrading to Vista until it becomes necessary due to dropped patch support for XP. If this situation arises, Microsoft has lost their monopoly power over the PC OEM's, and the tower crumbles.
Granted, this is more true for notebooks and dekstops than for servers and other infrastructure. But if I was managing a fleet of Macs for my employees, I'd start switching things over from Windows Server to OSX Server, too.
"There is no night so forlorn, no mood so bleak, that it cannot be infused with pleasure by tender meat..." - R.W. Apple
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
Couldn't apple still offer a cheaper business edition? I imagine they'd get a discount on that too. They may have to take a bit of a loss or no gain, but that wouldn't be a first in a competition.
Microsoft has good reasons to be nervous. I used to keep a Windows PC (or two) around for the odd (pun intended :-) consulting jobs that required some Windows only software. I have Parallels running right now because I need to run Ruby+Watir+IE for a customer task.
Microsoft still gets to sell Windows licenses, but they could get marginalized in the tech-elite market. That said, most of my non-computer savvy friends are happy enough to buy a cheap Windows PC to browse the web and do email.
I was under the impression that Vista was a resource hog as it is, wouldn't a virtualized Vista require more resources & in turn a beefier computer to run virtualized as opposed to how it's traditionally run ?
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Virtualization, particularly when the virtualization is not terribly obvious, is a great threat to MS. I have a Windows box sitting in the corner to do those things for which Linux software does not exist. I fire it up after Patch Tuesday and then once in a while to run whatever it is I need. If I could have VMs (hardware is too limnited) then the same box would support my primary environment and Windows as a rarely used secondary. Not a pleasant place for MS to be when on other fronts they are wringing all the money they can from their products.
Imagine if you will ...
People using Open Office in Linux as their primary suite and resentfully starting up the non-standard MS Office to comply with a customer who hasn't seen the light ... Cleaning up the Windows instance from some attack while their Linux instance runs happily along ... Using Linux applications to create anything of lasting importance (without any trusted computing and DRM games) while using Windows for quickie throw-away stuff and interaction to comply with companies who are stuck in Windows environment ... People would begin to see Windows as an added cost instead of a part of overhead.
With its DRM, cost, and licensing restrictions, Windows might quickly be relegated to a media player and other envronments would take their place as serious applications. People would acquire the minimum MS they need to use proprietary stuff (some banks, employer systems, etc) and that is it. Even worse, imagine a system vendor being able to sell you a VM box with a diagnostic instance, linux, and optionally Windows. Suddenly there is no stranglehold on support environments. Manufacturers would tend to virtualize their hardware so that it could be used from Windows as well as other OSs. Compatibility would be a major driver of hardware sales. MS would lose the lock on hardware support.
So, in short, they have a big risk from virtualization and we can expect them to resist it as long as they can.Is it my imagination that OS/2 did essentially the same as far as the unified appearance with windows 3.x in the Warp days? And didn't NT used to run Windows on Windows in a seemless view as well in an essentially virtualized environment? Though I understand the virtulization discussed here is a somewhat different concept as they weren't emulating hardware, but werent they essentially virtual machines? And now that OSX is running on Intel type hardware is this level of emulation necessary any longer? (I can think of circumstances where the answer to that would be yes, or no).
Someday I'll think of something clever for my sig.
C'mon, if a zaibatsu were capable of being "terrified" (that's a pretty weird concept anyway) it wouldn't be terrified of having its products sold to an audience that would not otherwise buy them. And that's the case here, it's Microsoft penetrating the Mac/linux/BSD software market through virtualization, not the other way 'round.
Is Microsoft terrified of a world where Windows can be virtualized and forced to take a back seat to Mac OS X or Linux?
n ap.html is officially touting DirectX 8.1 which has been experimental forever.
Yes, imho.
And it's interesting that the press release http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/fusio
A seamless "Unity for Ubuntu" and DirectX 9.0c would be the final pieces of the puzzle for a lot of folks. It doesn't help the cause for pushing development of native Linux apps. But it would certainly increase the installed base of non-Windows OSes and that's a solid baby step.
Apple is more content with knowing that users in supported enterprise/academic/government environments can get Macs and use nifty technologies like Parallels, VMware, Boot Camp, etc., but isn't interested in getting into the Windows game itself.
This is about ending the Windoze game. Apple is offering a safety blanket so that people can user Apple and other applications without fear of not being able to work with dreaded M$ enslaved coworkers. Their users, in turn, will do what they can to interact in standards based ways like Open Office, Google Office and anything but Office 2007. Being able to run Office 2007 in a virtual machine, minimizes Windoze created hardware problems and eliminates the "networking" game M$ uses to push it's upgrade train.
A better way to end that train is to make government use ODF and return all Office Docs to their source with a note that tells the clueless sender why you can't work with them.
The upgrade train is already fatally damaged. Vista is not selling and both it and Office 2007 have been baned almost everywhere. Google and Sun have useful and free alternatives that won't wreck your work in a few years because neither can decide it's time to overhall things to generate revenue. Apple is happy to join the pack of rebels. The lack of Vista sales is hurting hardware makers enough to discredit the perpetual upgrade train for them. This destroys M$'s ability to manipulate hardware vendors and will ultimately bring about real hardware standards and competition. M$'s days of BIOS sabotage are numbered.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Apple isn't successful because they're copying or somehow making the transition to a Mac easier.
The summary describes a kind of "me too" marketing that Apple just doesn't do. Furthermore, consumers just don't work that way.
The way corporations Apple's size work is they wait long enough for a new segment to have many smaller vendors and enough market research to verify the dollar-size of a market. Then they build a simpler device in the same segment and charge more for it because they have to pay for all the advertising.
This is standard operating procedure.
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
Well, I believe that completely invalidates my argument. Thank you! Now if only reverse that insightful moderation on my comment.
Why bother.
M$ is a small part of the fantasy "IP" Empire some deluded people believe in. Other members are big oil, telco, pharmacy, insurance and financial institutions. Their attitude is ugly but even while ascendent it should in no way be mistaken for real American attitudes or values. They have abused the US government and it's laws and used the US military power to force more of the same around the world, but the backlash is here. Making friends with China has been a disaster and the IP fantasy people increasingly talk about "offshoring" their operations to blackmail the US Government further. Actual Americans are fed up with the whole thing, but if you think they are angry with US companies that have sold them out to Chinese slave labor, just wait until they are asked to do things on behalf of companies based in the Bahamas or Dubai. Fat chance.
The real spirit of America is still enshrined in it's constitution and bill of rights. Those, more than silly, made up corporate and "IP" rights motivate US citizens. It is in that spirit that GNU was founded and grew. M$'s vendor manipulation and marketing billions have bought them some misguided adherents, but they are further and fewer between than ever before. M$ would strip their user of their freedom and choice in something as slippery as software. A command economy based on software, can their be a dumber concept than that? Ultimately, people hate restrictions and being forced to press "I Agree", so the game can't last.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
OSX is more reliable, easier to support...and run IE and a couple of other specialty apps alongside my OSX apps
A system that is running OS X and Windows apps is more difficult to secure and administer than a system just running Windows. Running Windows either through a VM or directly on the metal gives you all of the security and administration disadvantages of running Windows! A Mac requires its own, albeit smaller, administrative duties but bringing them into the equation causes more overhead, not less.
If your long term goal was to migrate from Windows to Mac then you may see an eventual payoff but if the goal is just to run both environments concurrently then you must support both environments concurrently.
Hey at least you can run Windows on a Mac. Try to run OSX on anything else but Apple hardware and see if you don't get really popular with some male prisoners FAST.
I love how Apple turns around and uses this as a feature point "Only a Mac can run Windows, Linux and OSX! It is truly a miracle!"....
I don't mean to sound cruel or condescending, but my view is that most posts here, with a tip to Feynman, aren't even wrong.
. and.sux/
Paraphrasing/summarizing/(even missing-the-point-you-ignorant-slut if you so choose):
1. "MS would win big by having Vista on Apple as it increases revenue." Booooookay - (and I *AM* writing this on an Apple) - aka, any Apple has to be considered as encroachment on their market dominance. Believe what you want, but Apple and Linux aren't threats to MS (from the marketing standpoint) - they're annoyances. It's not like there's an untapped sea of Apple users who have never heard of Windows and could be shown some kind of light. And then discover Windows thanks to VM. And want more of the same. And give access to a great untapped resource of potential Windows users of which you speak. Or anything, man.
2. "MS could win big with an OEM agreement with Apple." Uhhhhhh.... uuuuuuhhhhhhh - Dell, et al, have no other commercially dominant OS supplier to turn to, whereas Apple is devoid of this problem as they can supply their own OS. The only thing an Apple OEM agreement - in my not-so-humble opinion - could do is to invert negotiations everywhere. OEM agreements don't come from the Keebler Elves, you don't get a bag of them that are pretty much the same wherever you go - they're customized. And Mr. We-will-charge-a-buck-for-tunez-no-matter-what is not going to be easy to negotiate with - and neither will Dell, et al, after finding Apple may have some market lock with questions to be asked.
3. "Apple could win big by having an OEM agreement with MS." Ooooooh - scary - it would be admitting that OS X couldn't do it all - BEEEEP! Wrong. If they failed to get appropriate terms and had to charge to more for WinWhatever, then it increases the chances of adoption failure while Apple marketing has to fend off further charges of being overpriced. Better terms than that? See point number 2.
4. "Could be a support nightmare for MS and not worth the fringe buyers." Mmmmmmm - and which of you isn't a support nightmare for MS? And how much sleep have you seen them lose on your so-called nightmares?
5. "MS is all about control and VM under OS X effectively takes that control away." I went into the future where this happened and overheard Sparky and Scooter wondering what that MS Project thing was that they needed for effective Gant charts and WBS management and why that sideways-infinity thing was needed...... Or not. See points 1 and 3.
Where is Google's legal bitch against MS's desktop search? (See http://all.over.the.web.this.week/) And where is that same Google complaint against Spotlight? (See http://irdf.web-2.0.org/ or http://but.apple.is.small.and.cool.and.ms.is.mean
It's about each side picking their battles, very wisely, with decades of winning and losing in this industry and it's about knowing what side of the consumers' asses to kiss - along with erstwhile partner/competitors - and a few government entities tossed in here and there - and a few renegade lawyers now that I think about it - and when.
But that's just me.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
As someone who use Windows mainly because it is the OS of choice for PC gaming, all I want is the ability for VMware or any other virtualization technology to fully support the latest version of DirectX (at least version 9) at native speed. The day it happens is the day I'm going to dump Windows as my primary OS, and I don't think I would be the only one to make this move.
.torrent files of the latest games as virtual appliances, running on a stripped version of Windows and ready to be loaded on any x86 box whatever its native OS. Somehow, I can't imagine Microsoft being confortable with this scenario.
I imagine crackers distributing
Microsoft, in the past and at present, has used OEM contracts as their major tool for consolidating their hold on the industry. Their OEM agreements have contained such provisions as "if you want preferred pricing, you can't sell computers that run any other operating system." Only for very, very large computer makers such as Dell and HP -- where Microsoft wants to be because there's huge volume -- do they relax these demands. The likelihood of Microsoft offering Apple an OEM contract is extremely low if MS thought it would be a threat.
Microsoft is a convicted monopolist; Apple is one of the few companies that in any sense can be called a competitor for Microsoft. If Apple seeks an OEM contract, Microsoft may be faced with the choice of Apple threatening them in the marketplace, or Apple threatening them in the courts. With an OEM contract, they get paid; without, they just spend money to defend themselves.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Given Apple's strict prohibition against virtualizing OS X, it seems hard for Apple fans to complain if Microsoft is doing the same to Apple.
However, as someone who is using virtualization software, I have to say, I doubt they have anything to fear. Virtualization software is non-trivial to set up, has spotty hardware support, has performance hits (particularly for I/O), uses lots of memory, and results in inconsistent UIs and unpleasant window management. I doubt that Microsoft is seriously worried about virtualization on OS X.
Apple *owns* x86 now.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Microsoft probably doesn't care as the mac market is fairly small by comparison. My question is, if Vista ran on Intel Macs with no virus issues and no stability problems could Windows use that to say the problems with Windows are not really them but with the windows hardware guys. Yeah it might be bull but it might be a useful tool to bash the windows oems when it comes time to deciding prices.
You missed the point. The hardware is the package. The software is what sells a Macintosh.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
But the original poster got it backwards. Microsoft was designed to appeal to the masses rather than the elites. The elites being Linux/unix for technical elite, Apple for cooler than though artist elite types. This is similar to the way McDonalds and Budwiser and big dumb action movies were designed for the masses because the masses mean larger sales. The USA was designed (by elites oddly enough) with government by the masses for the masses and not with some elites telling us what to do all the time. We've enshrined our right to mouth off and tell the government they suck as well as the right to carry a gun in case the government doesn't like our mouthing off. Most other countries are run by elites. Even democracies in Europe have elites trying to force the EU upon member states. Yes the US has elites (in both parties) trying to increase government power all the time, the post would be far to long to cover all the shades-of-gray. And in almost all examples above the elites generally dislike or hate the product/nation designed for the masses with a passion that is sometimes irrational.
First, the regular OEM price isn't a "greatly reduced price" - its the de-facto going rate for Windows (exactly what price the big boys, Dell, HP etc. pay - and what "Important considerations" they offer in return is another question).
Secondly, the current OEM license already has some major extra restrictions about how and where you can install it - with crossed fingers and a following wind you could probably argue that these already blocked VM use - after all, where would you stick the hologram? :-) They pretty clearly mean that joe user isn't supposed to buy an OEM copy and install it on his VM. If MS had changed the OEM rules to explicitly block "VM bundling" then I doubt it would have raised the sort of negative publictiy than claiming that you can't even use a full-price version on a VM has.
Thirdly, I stand to be proven wrong by posterity, but the only circumstances under which I can see Apple bundling Windows is if they throw in the towel, drop OSX and become a vendor of designer Windows PCs with an iLife-for-windows bundle (while plausible, I'm sure that ain't exactly Plan 'A'). There's a huge PR difference between the current stance of "hey - if you want to use our hardware to run Windows here are some solutions" and saying "actually, so many people can't get buy with OSX alone that we've decided to bundle windows". The latter comes under the heading of "pulling a Ratner*". I'm sure Microsoft would love to be thrown into that briar patch.
Anyway, if you've actually tried to use Parallels (or, by reputation, VMware) you'll know that while they are excellent products, they don't yet come close to the Apple "it just works" standard (on which Windows sets something of an upper limit, anyway!). Coherence is very effective, and certainly solves the screen real-estate issues with running apps inside a VM window - but to say it "makes Windows apps look and work just like OSX" is rather optimistic.
Nope - explanation "A" is that TFA was warm - this policy makes it cheaper to buy a Dell than a legit copy of Windows Vista for your Mac or Linux box. Explanation "B" is that VMs can be used to circumvent DRM and that forcing pirates to buy a full-price copy of Ultimate gives Microsoft enough plausible deniability to stop the MS board from being carted off to G'tmo under the DMCA. Of course, Explanation B only makes sense if you are sufficiently far down the DRM rabbit hole to think that evil terrorist-loving pirates are going to lose sleep over breaching their windows EULA - or will even relate the concepts of "buy" and "windows" , but then...
(*Sorry - I've googled "pull a Ratner" and it might not mean in US English what it means in English English, which is "publicly describing your own product as 'crap' and then wondering where your business went")
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
I think applications will live in a middleware space and not depend on OS features. Think GoogleApps and Google Gears.
For those wondering, like I was, what this Coherence thing was about (since the submitter or editors decided not to include a link), here ya go: Parallels Coherence. It basically lets Parallels run without having to use the Windows desktop so windows Apps appear to be more like Mac apps. Kinda slick.
today is spelling optional day.
Ummm, even if you are an original equipment manufacturer wouldn't you need to sign a contract with Microsoft to sell Windows??? While there may be restrictions on what MS can do because the government has declared them a monopoly but it would seem pretty odd if MS couldn't chose not to sell Windows to someone if they wanted to.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
Apple is not going to do that. My guess is that Microsoft figured out that lots of people run Windows in VMs, and that many of these are the people who may actually pay for software, so they are trying to get as much money from them as possible.
Why doesn't MS do what Apple did and abandon their "home grown" OS base and start with something more stable (like BSD) as a base and create a front-end like Apple did with OSX? Seems to me this would solve a lot of the issues with security, etc. Besides, what people most want out of Windows is the applications (MS office, namely). Heck, they could even take a hybrid approach -- host a lightweight VM on top of that stable base, and have it run parts of Win32, leaving the underlying "OS" tasks to the stable base. At least that way a BSOD wouldn't tank the entire machine, just the VM "sandbox".
Apple has gone to great effort to incorporate boot camp into Jaguar. This is no accident. One of the big problems of running Windows in a VM is performance. As everyone knows, Vista is a resource hog especially if you run the Aero desktop. Virtualization on a Mac has been around for years (with Microsoft sanctioning it by writing and selling the virtualization software! They stopped support with OSX), but it never really took off. Why? The performance sucked. Everyone that I knew that used the Windows VM said it was slow. Parallels, from what I understand, runs Windows XP really well. Apple, although, appears not to want to endorse that route. So how does Apple get around the performance issues once and for all? They utilize something that has been a part of Linux for a very long time--a dual boot loader. Not really a huge stretch if you think about it and quite logical. The real question is that with the advent of boot camp running natively with every install of Jaguar, does Apple start selling OEM dual booting OSX and Windows Macs to promote switching? I can speak from experience because as a long time Windows user (actually started with DOS and bought the first version of Windows 3.x) when I found out about the beta of boot camp, I went out and bought a Macbook Pro that runs OSX and XP. As a web developer there were reasons I still needed Windows (remote server control, a few apps, and IE), but more often than not I find myself using OSX. So does Apple do the obvious and just ship Macs with both OSX AND Windows OEM installed with the release of Jaguar? When MacWorld comes around in February it wouldn't suprise me one bit if that was apart of Steve Jobs' keynote speech.
Badges!?! We don't need no stinking badges!
Is Microsoft terrified of a world where Windows can be virtualized and forced to take a back seat to Mac OS X or Linux?
Isn't the back seat where you sit in a Limo, where we get taken where we want to go?
Gee, how bad could it be to sell more product through a yet another avenue?
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
Anyone can make arguments based on sunk costs - and they are all equally silly. Sunk costs are just that - sunk.
Transition costs, however, can be substantial. Hence, all the hoopla whenever a new version of Windows comes out - there are usually so many issues in upgrading (usually centered on breaking some crucial app) that when 'upgrading' it actually makes some sense to consider moving to another platform. So far, however, the calculus has (rightly or wrongly) resulted in most firms stcking to Windows - not because of 'sunk costs' in reality, but because the perceived transition costs are too high - not least, many 'key' windows apps are not perceived to have equivalents, Open-Source or otherwise, on other platforms.
Now, as Apple is 'mainstream' enough, we might see more business usage of Macs - lord knows, Apple pushes this idea pretty hard, if you watch their pubs.
Think of it this way - up until now, the argument is 'Well, Macs can't run application XYZ'. Now they can, virtualized. So, a business could buy a Mac and get their App. Once that happens, even on a small scale, the whole 'there is no market for app XYZ on the Mac because everyone has PCs in business' argument starts to degrade, so developers can afford to start developing for Mac, since there is a growing hardware base.
Or so it seems in my little world...
The OS was not what sold me on the Mac Pro. I already had Tiger on two other Macs. I bought the new hardware because it could run the then-latest Final Cut Studio better than my existing machines and because, like the 68k platform before it, I know the PPC software market will eventually dry up.
That's not to say I won't be buying Leopard. I just won't be buying a 5-seat-license version if it can't run on PPC Macs (last I read it will).
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Not if you're paying for a Windows license. I mean, if OSX or Lunix or whatever can't put up a viable application interface, why is 'borrowing' Windows' functionality legitimate? OSX has a perfectly viable application interface. It's just that some developers choose not to develop for it. This process simply allows you to run windows within OSX to get those apps working.
This isn't a situation where Apple is saying "Wow, Vista does cool stuff that we want OSX to do." This is 3rd party developers saying "I'd really like to run XYZ windows app on my Mac."
Again, you're not borrowing or stealing anything from Microsoft. You're paying for a copy of the OS and running it. Where you run it is irrelevant.
They are afraid of everyone..even their customers.
It's lonely at the top.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Now normally, he couldn't use this at work at all. Ever since the intentionally crippled Windows ME was created to force businesses to migrate to the more expensive Windows 2000/XP Pro, instead of running on Windows 98SE, Microsoft, like the airlines who find ways to make business travelers pay more (e.g. advance purchase requirements for cheap fares, Saturday night stays, etc.), has been able to create versions of Windows that companies with more money to spend have to buy the expensive ones. If you want to connect into Active Directory, home versions just won't do it. They held on to the home market as well by offering much cheaper versions of Windows there.
Now, however, if your base operating system (Linux, OS/X) can handle connectivity to your business needs, then the cheapest Windows in a virtual environment can be used for your Windows only apps.
Furthermore, this gives you an easy way to migrate away over time from Windows apps altogether. You no longer have to go Cold Turkey on being cutoff from Windows. You can keep what you need until the next software upgrade cycle, running less and less on Windows Vista, until you don't need it any longer at all.
Yeah, if I was Microsoft I'd really be scared too!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Either way they are still running Windows software and supporting the Windows developers who write the Windows software. If I just paid almost $3000 for my new desktop computer I certainly wouldn't want to have to buy another OS and VM to actually be able to get software for it. So in a sense the article makes perfect sense. Apple should include Windows on it's PCs. As a matter of fact, why not just scrap OS X and install Windows by default.
Because they'll never do the alternative that would actually increase their market share by releasing OS X for specific OEM vendors like DELL, HP, IBM, etc. They'd rather get a bunch of Zealots to pay a premium for their custom overpriced hardware.
So, to briefly recap, the prohibition is only a prohibition to "law obeying citizens," and the payoff for circumventing DRM in this manner is unimpressive.
All DRM, copy protection, "Genuine Windows", these are all directed at the "law abiding citizen". There's no way to keep an aggressive attacker from compromising any DRM scheme that's loose enough that the "law abiding citizens" will put up with it, so all DRM is for is to stop casual copying.
Virtual machines don't just let you clone the "keys" to the DRMed content... as you say, that's ludicrous. Not only would a copy of a movie wrapped up in a VM be huge, but it would also contain everything the copyright owner would need to track down the original pirate. What virtual machines do more than anything else is compromise the data path. The copy of Windows running in the VM will happily play a movie in its virtual screen, which your VM can then transcribe to a file with no copy protection on it. Virtual machines make casual copying through the "digital hole" trivial.
That's why VMs and DRM go together like a lit cigarette and a gas station.
Besides the "good in the short term, bad in the long term" arguments presented by other people, there are other things Microsoft is worried about:
* Windows XP
* Piracy.
If you have Windows XP, virtualization allows you to use "Vista-only" applications in XP, but it really won't be worth it if you have to shell out big bucks and a lot of resources to do so. Cheap, resource unintensive Vista Basic allows you to eat your cake and have it too, so why bother upgrading?
Just as significant, virtualization in general is a big thorn in "Windows Genuine Advantage" because if you install a MS Vista in a virtual machine, it has no way of knowing if you've made dozen copy of the virtual machine and given them to your friends since each virtual machine is identical. Basically, there's no way Microsoft can stop MS Vista piracy if it allows Vista to run in virtual machines. Now it could try to determine it heuristically by having all copies phone home regularly and determine if their IP addresses are the same and lock them out otherwise, but that would really PO roaming users or DHCP users who reboot their machines a bit too often. This doesn't even count the cases where a virtual machine is cloned (just before entering the license key) and hundreds are copies are made and unique keygens values are entered (the keygen doesn't even have to be right most of the time since throwing away a virtual machine is cheap).
If pirated virtualizated copies of MS Vista becomes common, then it wouldn't matter what platform you were running...XP, Apple, Linux, or even OpenSolaris...so migration to other operating systems is possible, since whatever OS you use would be a boot-loader for Vista. And if that happens, as others have said, people will slowly migrate towards the native apps of the OS they end up using and virtualizated Vista will be looked at the way Java is, as a portable application layer, except a lot more resource intensive.
Personally, I think Microsoft's best bet is to stop spending resources and customer good will on DRM and "Genuine Advantage" and "out virtualize the virtualizers" by turning Vista into a portability layer that can run on Linux, XP, Apple, OpenSolaris, etc. Essentially, Windows would become (scalable) middleware that most businesses would use because they're already tied to it and likely become tied to it if they know they have a choice of deployment platforms.
Microsoft currently spends a lot of effort on the lower layers of the OS, but the lowest layers of the OS aren't where the action is these days. It's like Civil Engineering. All the major innovations were thought up years ago and the work is mostly about following established practice to solve well documented problems. If Microsoft wants to continue being unique and valuable, it has to step out of the "safe" place that it is now and venture out to the interface between, the "safe and comfortable" and the place where "new problems need to be solved" (e.g. in civil engineering, that would likely be "green" engineering, extraterrestrial civil engineering, subterranean engineering, etc).
If typing "my wrong?" takes you all day, you need typing lessons.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Might I recommend using Linux instead of windows?
http://www.tatanka.com.br/
I want to bring to your attention the fact that the use of virtualization software is not really intended for the desktop environment. I can't imagine MS is terribly concerned about a few (even thousand) really expert users who pull off the use of Vista on a Mac or a Linux box in their basement. The group is simply too few to be on their radar.
On the other hand every IT department everywhere understands that they can not continue to allow their server 'farms' to continue to grow at the rate they have over even the last few years. Virtualization solves a lot of problems, particulary those with snoody applications that demand an entire 'box' to themselves; or even several 'stand alone' platforms.
What MS is really scared of is the possibility that someone will figure out a way to make Windows a sort of middle-ware. Say for instance we could get VMware to run on a zLinux partition on a mainframe.
I know the vast majority of Slashdot readers are mainframe-averse, but the cost savings due to such simple things as floor space reduction is too large to ignore, particularly with the very large applications like PeopleSoft or SAP that have application and database servers on Windows. Consolidation of hardware demands significant hardware and one of the lessons we HAVE learned over the past 15 or so years is that in certain circumstances centralized is better.
Dennis Dumont
.....A system that is running OS X and Windows apps is more difficult to secure and administer than a system just running Windows........
Only true for those users that need to access a Windows network server that OSX cannot reach. The VM uses Mac network settings and OSX can share files with Windows anyway. Macs also have a firewall that administrators can activate for further protection. A regular backup of the entire Windows VM will make it easy to repair a virus infected or otherwise broken Windows VM. Running Windows on a Mac makes sense only for users that need one or two Windows apps, but can do most of their work on the Mac.
All theory is gray
I never see Microsoft compare itself to Apple, only Apple ads with some fat fart and homo disparaging Microsoft products. Microsoft is concerned about virtualization on servers, not your mommmy's Mac like the stupid butt humping fanbois think. And for the record, I use Ubuntu on all my PCs.
I don't know why there wasn't a link to Parallels Coherence in the article summary (Youtube demo on page following).
I just updated my version of Parallels the other day, and didn't even notice the buttons for Coherence. It is extremely cool!
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
After almost 15 years of reading these articles with predictions of Apple dominating the desktop because of short-term, temporary advantages, I really feel ashamed to even have to reply to this.
Once you shut off the zealotry, the blogger who is journalist by night and mcdonalds cashier technician by day, the writer who feels the need to 100% of the time write in a manner to agree with absolutely the most opinions regarding readership, etc, you no longer see things nearly the same.
What I see is my investment portfolio with two companies who have done exceptionally well in my time paying attention to such things. One thing that it seems like the entire world, except for the guy who bought a little bit of the company, like to form snap opinions based on what's in their face at that very moment and not anything remotely resembling a future reality adjusted to whatever licensing schemes, sales schemes, etc either could come up with. For instance, this whole discussion seems to be stuck in an alternate world where Microsoft and Apple will make a decision, go with it, never adjust, until one of them is sunk. Think about how absolutely moronic that is to even discuss!
They're pretty renowned at this point for poor customer service, especially on the support end of things, and with the release of Parallels 3.0 they used misleading (some arguably outright false) advertising to sucker people into pre-ordering it because of its hardware 3D acceleration support. In reality, it barely supports DirectX 8.1, though I've heard it does Open GL okay. I will grant them this, though: they did eventually refund people their upgrade pre-orders, but this would render their licenses invalid, and I _think_ many or all of them couldn't revert to Parallels 2 (though I'm not positive on that, sorry) the whole thing was a general fiasco. Mind you, at least they did take some steps to make amends and all, so they're not _that_ bad, but still...
:P
VMWare Fusion beta 4 (free open beta, currently) is pretty much on par with Parallels 3.0 (each is a bit better/worse than the other in some areas) and the official release is pre-orderable for half-price, and the full price is the same as Parallels'. From my experience, VMWare has been a much more trustworthy, reliable company, with much happier customers in general, and as such, I'd think it more kosher for them to be the VM lauded so highly, rather than the one included as an afterthought.
By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.
Microsoft's stance regarding virtualization is pretty interesting once you consider the fact they bought VirtualPC from Connectix a few years back. They even started giving the PC version of it away as a free download from their website.
8==8 Bones 8==8
I think there's been some good analysis in this discussion/comment thread, but as a Mac user (17" MBP) and an IT security specialist, and as someone who's tested both Parallels and VMware Fusion beta, I can say that it really does push Windows relevance to the back burner, if not off the stove entirely. I use Parallels for Visio 2003 at this point, and that's about the only thing I need from the Windows world that does not have an equivalent, if not better, application in OS X. Even for diagramming, I could use OmniGraffle or that other diagramming tool, but they only read Visio XML, not native Visio 2003, and it's a pain to ask others to save as... all the time.
Keynote and Pages blow PowerPoint and Word out of the water, and also are compatible. OpenOffice, the GIMP and other FOSS tools are available. I use nmap (compiled from source), Andreas Fink's Wireshark package (too much of a pain to compile on my own), and yeah, so on and so forth. System uptime: two days and 24 minutes; rebooted only to apply some software updates recently. The stability and CLI of UNIX, the beauty of Apple GUI...it just works. And well.
Ich suche die Leidenschaft, die keine Leiden schafft.
Microsoft I am sure would enjoy selling a Vista license with every Apple fashion accessory (it also doubles as a real working x86 PC! And it comes in white!).
Clearly the problem is more in the cost of the new mandatory Vista on Apple licenses. If they're done on the cheap, Microsoft will miss a bit of revenue.
I'm a little surprised Apple is working on this, they've always wanted to be a bigger monopolist than Microsoft (Microsoft doesn't try to lock you into a hardware/software vertical monopoly). Jobs has always been adamant that Apple is a software company (I think this is strange, the primary business of Apple is MP3 players and DRM'd music distribution, although this is changing to just watermarking files so they can be traced). So why would Jobs want to water down his control over the Apple user by promoting more Windows apps? My gut feeling is that he is doing this to reduce the popular opinion that Macs "aren't compatible" and "can't run my apps" to buffer up his sales. But how he'll re-assert his control over the users is a mystery to me.
Reality Distortion Field will help somehow?
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
Look, here is how Window will die: it will be virtualized seamlessly on other operating systems for 5 years until hardly anybody needs it anymore. The way you know this is that is what happened to Mac OS, and Windows is a copy of Mac OS that is 10 years behind.
1984 Mac GUI = Windows 95
1997 Mac "blue box" virtualizer on Rhapsody developer preview = Parallels 2007 on Mac OS X
1999 Mac virtualizer in Mac OS X Server = 2009 Parallels on high-end PC's running Unix
2001 Mac virtualizer in consumer Mac OS X = 2011 PC virtualizer with Windows in all consumer PC systems running Unix
2002 Classic Mac OS funeral (WWDC) = no new Win32 development by 2012
2003 Mac virtualizer now an optional component of Mac OS X, not pre-installed = 2013 PC's say "bring your own Windows if you need it"
The last person that Microsoft is afraid of with regards to virtual Windows is Apple. It is much worse for them if Parallels or VMWare become Windows OEM's and hide Windows completely yet still run its apps. It is much worse for Sony to ship a Unix with PC virtualizer and Windows in it and hide Windows but still run its apps. Apple doesn't need to hide Windows to get Photoshop, that is a native Mac app for 10 versions, on Windows for only half that time. Apple likes it just fine if an AutoCAD user can buy a Mac and Parallels and still run their AutoCAD next to iLife and Apache.
If somebody can show me another consumer OS and app platform being migrated to a modern system in some other way, I'd be willing to reconsider my position. But wow do the PC pundits of today sound like Mac pundits of 10 years ago all talking about app platforms and virtualization and modern operating systems and Unix and how to we get there from here.
You are assuming it's a legitimate copy of Windows. Most likely, it will not be.
Secondly, as I said, it's a kind of intelectual property theft. As I stated, Apple and Lunix have decided that since they have nothing to offer to developers as a compelling reason for making applications for their platform, the solution is to "borrow" Windows code in order to get Windows apps to run seamlessly within their third-tier OS. Stating that the end user owns a licenced copy of Windows (which may or may not be true, but will probably not be) is sidestepping the issue.
If someone wants to use Windows applications, they should run Windows. It's as simple as that. The problem is that people tie themselves up into believing an operating system defines them as a person, then search for all kinds of ways to duct tape solutions onto their deficient OS.
That's probably why the majority of the sane world runs Windows.