Soup of the Day

A new dawn awaits

There has been a lot of movement in the industry over the last month. Apple’s BootCamp software announcement coupled with Microsoft’s announcement that Windows Vista is delayed by three months, putting its release to January/February 2007, has certainly attracted attention. Parallels also announced that they could now run Windows in a Mac OS X window with little performance penalties. So in a year we’ll be able to run S.U.s.e. Linux in a window in Windows Vista, running in a window on a Mac OS X 10.5 desktop? Well, maybe not.

Firstly, it has been commented on that Microsoft are worried about BootCamp? Why would they be, it simply means that Microsoft now have another platform they can sell their software too. I am sure that Microsoft probably helped Apple develop BootCamp and for the time being will quietly encourage its development. The people who should be worried about BootCamp are Dell and HP, as Apple could potentially now be stealing sales from them. They are probably the reason why Microsoft hasn’t publically endorsed BootCamp, making sure they keep their biggest customers happy.

What seemed so predictable is now beginning to become a little harder to predict though. Apple are keeping their cards so close to their chest with regards to Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard that very few of us really know what to expect. Obviously this has been done to ensure that Microsoft can’t quickly implement (poor) copies of new Apple technology in 10.5 before they release Vista.

Virtualisation technology is what is really interesting personally for me. The fact that in a years time, almost every mainstream operating system will be able to run along side each other makes all the lines blurred. Rather than Microsoft’s slogan of ‘What do you want to do today?‘, the mantra becomes ‘which OS shall I use now?‘

Meanwhile, if Google have their way we’ll do away with our operating systems and all use thin-client networked machines, running Google OS which will allow us to do everything we enjoy doing today, except no data will be stored locally. Instead, files, music, applications and games would all be stored on Google servers and piped to us across broadband connections just-in-time. This vision might be a few years off yet, but everyone seems to be subscribing to it. Microsoft in particular have already started looking at getting Office online with their new Office Live initiative.

But maybe before we all throw our PC’s out the window and embrace thin-clients, they’ll be at least one more revolution. Just imagine for a second that it is February 2007. Apple are finally releasing Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard for general consumption, including a 64-bit version for 64-bit PPC and Intel Mac’s… but what’s this? Out of nowhere is another version of Mac OS X 10.5, a 32-bit version for everyone else running an Intel or AMD processor. As Bob Cringely suggested, this is when Microsoft and Apple’s relationship turns sour once more. Microsoft, you have been warned.