financial/investor

04/05/2006, 12:30pm, EDT

Wednesday, April 5th

Apple's Boot Camp a 'game changer'?

Anlaysts believe this morning's release of Boot Camp may have a signficant impact on the industry. American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu said that the release of the software to allow users to install and run Windows XP on Intel-based Macs could hurt other PC makers, while growing Apple's own market by attracting more switchers. "Steve Jobs did not disappoint on the 30th anniversary after all," Wu told clients in his research note, refering to this morning's announcement of the beta of Apple's Boot Camp. Available as a beta download now and expected to ship with Mac OS X Leopard, the next-generation operating system from Apple, Wu believes the release "is a big deal [that] potentially could be a significant game changer." The report noted that Apple's allure to switchers was limited because users were wary without Windows support.

Apple's stock was up more than five percent in mid-day trading, despite lower price targets announced yesterday by Lehman Bros and S&P, as well as UBS. Despite the relatively small cut in AAPL's price target to $95, UBS maintains a 'buy' rating on Apple stock.

"A key reason why Apple has not gotten more 'switchers' has is likely due to a lack of strong Windows compatibility, but now with Intel processors and chipsets, they are able to offer full compatibility with Windows XP on Mac."

The analyst also said that with support for both EFI and BIOS for booting, Microsoft's Vista operating system, now due in January, will also likely be supported on a Mac.

"We view this as an incremental negative for HP, Dell and other PC makers as Apple will be able to garner additional PC market share." The firm reiterated its 'buy' rating on Apple with a price target of $101.


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pun intended?
0
04/05, 12:58pm, EDT
Yes, it will most likely be used for changing OS to play games.
Mac Elite
Joined Aug 2004
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In 10.5 Boot Camp
0
04/05, 1:27pm, EDT
Do you think that when 10.5 rolls around there will also be support for PPC ?

Obviously an amazing feature and a huge selling point, but if a big part of the Apple base can't use it, i wonder if there will have to be another hook to buy 10.5

Boot Camp has huge ramifications for the future, but what about the past? Thoughts?
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined Oct 2003
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The Past
0
04/05, 1:46pm, EDT
Interesting that you should point about the past. Look at Microsoft. They support the past. 95,98,98ME,NT,2000 and XP. It is that support that is dragging down their OS to ensure old software is still compatible.

At some point you have to move on otherwise you stand still. The Microsoft OS is on ther verge of standing still for lack of vision and guts to move forward.

Apple is still support the PPC chip and will continue to do so. After about three years you can expect that to disappear just like OS9 support. But really, by that point shouldn't everyone by moving forward?
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huh?
0
04/05, 1:47pm, EDT
how can PPC support boot camp? it's not emulation technology, it's probably just the legacy boot support for Intel-based BIOS to let the Intel Macs boot up Windows.

if anything, it makes people sticking to their PPC Macs more likely to switch to Intel. so in addition to a dead end architecture and faster performance, the Intel Macs offer easy dual boot and driver support for Windows. that helps with the current tradeoffs of not having native apps like photoshop and ancillary support apps like system preference panels, printer drivers, keyboard drivers, plugins, etc.
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Prediction...
0
04/05, 1:48pm, EDT
Adobe CS3 for OS X will never see the light of day. And why should it.? What financial or performance advantage would Adobe gain by producing CS3 for OS X? They can lay off the entire OS X team now. Mark my words.

Major developers will begin to abandon OS X in droves. Tell the Mac users to use the XP/Vista version. Huge savings in development costs. Money talks, plain and simple.

This is the beginning of the end for OS X. That son-of-a-bitch Dvorak got it right after all. As Steve Jobs himself said, "The OS wars are over, Windows won." Crap.

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10.5 boot camp
0
04/05, 1:50pm, EDT
no it won't. a PPC emulator for windows would be too slow. besides it totally negates the point of this which is to increase CPU sales. by the time 10.5 ship the entire mac line up should be intel.

if you're stuck (like me) on an entirely PPC line up and you want/need XP dual boot then you have to upgrade instead of getting free software that isn't going to work all that well anyway.
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oops
0
04/05, 1:50pm, EDT
i meant to say "so in addition to faster performance" instead of "so in addition to a dead end architecture and faster performance..."
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re: predicition
0
04/05, 1:56pm, EDT
you're wrong. CS3 will absolutely see the light of day as will CS4-???. hell there are still a lot of print shops that use quark 4 on OS 9. adobe isn't going to throw away thousands of customers by telling them their hardware is obsolete. at a worst case scenario you will see CS3-CS5 available for PPC and intel OSX.

however if this move can add to the mac user base fast enough you will see the reverse of what you're expecting. there will be more developers coming to OS X. increased market share plus switchers who get embedded in OS X wanting those non-ported apps to be ported over. if apple has a 5-8% market share it's all of a sudden economically viable to support the platform.
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photoshop?
0
04/05, 2:01pm, EDT
So now I can run an X86 native version of Photoshop under Windows on my MacTel but I can't have a (native) version under OSX until CS3, damn if this isn't weird?
Forum Regular
Joined Oct 1999
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Adobe doesn't say obsole
0
04/05, 2:08pm, EDT
"re: predicition you're wrong. CS3 will absolutely see the light of day as will CS4-???. hell there are still a lot of print shops that use quark 4 on OS 9. adobe isn't going to throw away thousands of customers by telling them their hardware is obsolete. at a worst case scenario you will see CS3-CS5 available for PPC and intel OSX. "

Adobe doesn't say their hardware is obsolete, it is APPLE telling them they gave up, since Mactel announced.

Look to Apple Hardware pages not missing a single chance to attack their own sold PowerPC chips with lame ways no Dell 16 year old user troll may have not imagined to this date.

4x faster!!!

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Joined Nov 2004
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