Apple may offer most secure Vista PC

Apple may be planning to lure Windows users "into the light" of Mac OS X via its Boot Camp software, even as some Microsoft employees that the company will take marketshare from Apple. A recent column by Robert Cringely points to the possibility of Mac systems running the most secure Windows Vista installations, while Microsoft engineers made statements suggesting that Vista will be superior to Mac OS X, causing current Mac users to abandon Apple's OS. The statements of those engineers coincide with John Dvorak's predictions that the Cupertino-based company will forsake their own Mac OS X in favor of Windows at some point in the future. Cringely, however, believes that the version of Boot Camp which will ship with Mac OS X 10.5 will likely have full OS virtualization, enabling both operating systems to run side-by-side and allowing users to cut and paste data from one to the other.

"If Apple's intent is to do virtualization, then why bother with this dual boot version of Boot Camp? My best guess is to throw off Microsoft until it is too late. Not that I think Microsoft will even care as long as they get their money, but Apple can be sneaky this way," Cringely wrote.

Apple can offer the most secure version of Vista available with the lowest total cost of ownership, according to the columnist. Malicious users would have to work their way through Mac OS X's security before getting at Windows, and running Windows Vista from a read-only partition will allow users to wipe the OS and applications clean quickly and easily to rid their Windows installation of malware.

"By running Windows Vista this way, Apple can offer the most secure version of Vista available with the lowest Total Cost of Ownership, which could lead to a leadership change in business computing. Down with Dell and HP and up with Apple," Cringely wrote.

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