It seems like despite Apple's non commitment in this area, with Boot Camp they are pretty much providing their own Windows support. I'm kind of tempted to run Windows on my iMac to play some games not supported on Mac. Still, the $300 or whatever it costs to get a legal copy of windows is definitely a barrier. Can you imagine buying Windows at the Apple store? That's a spooky and unnerving thought.

...this is far more interesting to me:

http://www.parallels.com/en/news/id,8655

In case you don't feel like following the link, it's virtualization technology, in Beta testing TODAY!

I forgot to mention in my previous post that the beta is available for download now:

http://www.parallels.com/en/download/mac/

Of course you can download betas. They're BETA. That means, each person who tries it is a free tester for the software, assuming people will report problems.

I made a good Intel based PC (therotically) to build my own when I totally get fed up with these news.

It is some "extra extra" quality which costs like $1700. E.g. with 2 gb of RAM etc. Of course "XP Home" box included.

If Apple has right to decide anything, as a customer I have my very own right too.

So, switching back soon... 80% of reason is the possible "community" response like "Oh yea, steve jobs care", "go away" to this post.

Microsoft doesn't give support on any computer, why would this one be any different!?!

Maybe within a few years Apple will be the main PC company with MS being a software company writing software for Mac hardware. Both companies win.

Microsoft would be on a very sticky wicket legally, if they "refused" to support their own product, Windows, because of the hardware it was running on. I'm guessing that they are actually being backed into an intriguing moral* corner here, and the whole tech world is watching.

(* Okay, I know the words moral and Microsoft don't exactly belong in the same sentence normally!)

I would expect MS to be carefully watching this potential market. Once Leopard is launched they may well find their customers requesting it. It would be nice if 3rd party retailers of Intel Macs could offer installed MS OSes at a discount price on the machines they sell. As a long term AutoCad user the virtual route is more flexible for me.

Most Betas are free, but not all. Recall Apple's Mac OS X 10.0 Beta release.

"Of course you can download betas. They're BETA. That means, each person who tries it is a free tester for the software, assuming people will report problems."

for MS? If Mr. Dude buys a Dell, MS gets however many dollars Dell pays them for the OEM Windows (I'm assuming someone as mass-market as Dell gets at least a little discount). But if Mr. Dude decides to get a Mac and then buys a packaged box of Windows, MS gets full retail price. So, if I've got this right, MS would actually make more money from people putting Windows on their Macs than if people buy from PC manufacturing companies.

MS have no right to "contemplate" the support because customer pay for the OS. The Mac now vvirtually is a regular PC now, there's no legitimate reasons for not able/not support the Bootcamp solution Windows install.

A mac user is a person who complains when every single detail isn't followed based on some standard they and others have adopted over the years. Get over it. The only public beta Apple released was about $20 and it didn't receive a warm reception. It wasn't until Mac OS X 10.2 that someone, somewhere proclaimed, "It's ready for Prime Time". Now we have Mac OS X 10.4 and mac users are saying, "It will be ready for TGIF by 10.5". (end of rant) Microsoft is afraid of Apple because they have dominated the digital music market and are now setting their sights for the larger markets. Tired of the viruses on Windows? Boot into Mac OS X.