I have Windows XP booting in 10.3 seconds on my MacBook Pro, so there's really very little reason for VPC. See a movie I shot here: http://www.godsipod.com/xponmac/

There is something to be said for virtualization as opposed to dual-booting. Being able to run multiple Operating Systems simultaneously would be far preferable to dual-booting in many environments, say a high school computer lab for example.

Parallels Workstation seems to be pursuing this market and offers a solution for merely $50 USD (no copy of Windows included). Chances are, this is what MS is hoping to provide with the new VirtualPC. They'll just have to give people a good reason to use their product.

who cares. with parallels how can they compete $50 vs $300. whatever microsoft. that's one less dollar i have to fork over to you.

Actually, the retail price of Virtual PC (without Windows, like the Parallels offering) is $129, not $300.

If you buy Mac Office, the difference in price between Mac Office Standard (no VPC) and Mac Office Pro (with VPC and WinXP) is $100.

Parallels is still a better deal, as you'd expect from a scrappy new competitor looking to gain some market share, but it's nowhere near a sixfold difference.

Who does MS think they are kidding? They already have the core virtualization technology inside of their Windows Virtual PC product which they can leverage for the Mac Intel product. The x86-ISA emulation engine inside of the PowerPC Virtual PC product as well as all the dynamic translation code is no longer needed for the Intel Mac and that would have been the biggest porting headache. Sure, the other stuff like the UI, the integration additions, and porting the VMM isn't necessarily trivial but this is Microsoft we're talking about with the people, technical info, and resources to get the job done.

Additionally, both Parallels and Q (via the qvm86 virtualization module) utilize a kernel extension so what is this "changes that they (Apple) need to make to their OS" bologny? Are they looking to do paravirtualization instead on the Mac?

Seems like they were debating and/or sitting on a decision for political reasons and unfortunately for them, a company like Parallels stepped up to the plate and filled that void faster than expected. It would be even funnier if VMware officially announces a Mac version which according to the following article, their president said is running inhouse (but is also probably more in a proof of concept stage).

http://blogs.usatoday.com/maney/2006/04/mac_and_xp_a_vi.html

At this point, it seems rather moot anyway since it is highly likely Parallels Workstation will be shipping in a stable form long before Microsoft can even make a decision about Virtual PC for Intel Macs. I'd rather give my money to Parallels anyway since they are really receptive to this market by putting out the beta as well as taking and providing feedback for the product as opposed to the lip service Microsoft has been doing.

...or did i read somewhere that apple was planning on providing such virtualisation (like parallels, using the intel vt-x) in leopard?

on vpc, well vpc doesn't do solaris x86, and parallels does, so that makes the latter much more appealing to me.

...if there is any doubt even, every single sentence from Amanda Lefevre is a glorious illustration *how* out of touch everyone at Microsoft really is.

- EIther she doesn't even know of the Windows VPC product her company makes, which senbei points out quite well can easily be leveraged for a Macintosh port.

- Or she's not aware of alternative products like QUEMU, Wintel, and the recent (much better) Parallels Workstation - the later of which provides realistic virtualization.

All the while Roz Ho can't seem to bring herself to say anything else but worthless doublespeak, while continuing to defocus her MacBU team.

When the intel machines shipped, and VPC didn't work on them (no surprise), I gave up all hope of Microsoft creating an updated version - after all, *there* would have been a product that could have helped push their core market (Windows), but as is customary for MS, they are thinking about yesterday's problems, when it's too late to do anything about them. For all I'm concerned, Parallels Workstation will eat their lunch in that space (unless MS buys them).

As for Office 2004 in Universal Binary? I'm not holding my breath... at all.

This may be Microsoft's way of saying there isn't going to be a version. It's a no loose situation for them not to make the software... it could cost too much to make it and release it when people can run windows without it. Espeicially as Apple may be doing their own virtualization. Microsoft may actually know that and they are just buying time to say that there will be no more future release. It may be that Apple and Microsoft are working together on this one for the publics perception.

... sitting on the fence. No way.

They're just going to buy a solution if it turns out they need one. If Parallel's solution works, they'll buy the company, throw away anything necessary to support any other (non-MS) OS and release it under their own name. That's if they want to make the Mac more attractive as a competitor.

I think MS' big question right now is if they perceive Windows running at user-level on a Mac is going to gain them (MS) anything.

It's not about truth or user-support. It never has been with MS.

Who does MS think they are kidding? They already have the core virtualization technology inside of their Windows Virtual PC product which they can leverage for the Mac Intel product.

Amazing how many people here know the inner workings of not only VPC for Mac, but VPC for Windows, to know how much effort would be needed.

But for those of us who don't know how it works, couldn't it be that their VPC product for Windows converts all the display code to corresponding code on the host machine? While converting Windows display code to Windows display code is trivial, wouldn't then all this code need to be converted to deal with OS X's display engine? I don't know, since I don't know how the software works inside.

Sure, the other stuff like the UI, the integration additions, and porting the VMM isn't necessarily trivial but this is Microsoft we're talking about with the people, technical info, and resources to get the job done.

Gee, usually all you read about here on these boards is how incapable MS is at producing anything, let alone anything original. Now, all of a sudden, they've got the resources and technical expertise to get the job done. Will someone, please, make a decision!