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?"

Comments

Re:MS a Metaphor for the US?

[JacksBrokenCode]

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!

Thank you, it's all so clear to me now. Damn all those innovative & progressive goals of the Muslim world! Thank God that our hero George W. Bush was able to crush the burgeoning center of development & social improvement known as Afghanistan and Iraq. Just think: If the US hadn't made a mess in the middle east, Afghanistan & Iraq would be the pinnacle of technological development, a truly enlightened society bringing nothing but goodness to the rest of the world. Silicon Valley was about to be usurped by Mecca unless Team America did something about it.

Wait, what?

Where to start?

[earlymon]

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.

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. and.sux/

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.