| Parallels for MacIntels: It was Inevitable |
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| Wednesday, 11 July 2007 | |||||||||
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What's a Guy to Do?It is interesting to note that while Apple started with the Motorola chip in the earlier Macs trying to separate themselves from Microsoft madness and other PC makers, they later moved to the PowerPC chip (surely after many people, including fans, complained about slowness of Apples compared to the then-speedier PC clones). The move cost them in terms of having to revamp all the software to take advantage of the new architecture. Moving to the Intel chip is yet another leap which will cost in software revamp once again, not only for them, but for all the companies that write apps for the Mac base. It's strange to see Apple, which was once trying to stay far from Microsoft's path, now embracing the same technology. Or is it? It's a smart move actually. And in the same breath, it's something Microsoft will regret soon. Apple captured our imaginations, that's where they took the lead. Microsoft now is playing catchup with their Vista operating system, but again a day late, a dollar short. Why move to the Intel chip? Well, you can look on the Internet about all the reasons that the analysts provide, or that Apple itself has disclosed, but my personal theory is that this was a calculated move in order to dominate and overtake Microsoft. The strategy is simple. Get on the same chipset that most of your competitors use, and allow them to continue using their known environment within yours. That strategy is even more onerous for the OS makers who depend on having a stranglehold on the PC environment (Microsoft). Bootcamp, Apple's answer to running Windows on a Mac came shortly after an Internet contest which asked people to write software that would allow PC apps to run on the new Mac Intels. However, Apple now gives a nod to Parallels as a very powerful and convenient way to run a virtual PC on your Mac. The main difference between Bootcamp software from Apple and Parallels software is that one allows full, but discrete access to each OS (Bootcamp), while the other (Parallels) does exactly as it's name says, allowing you to run the Mac OS in tandem with Windows. You simply switch from one to the next at whim, when you want, on one screen, or you can devote each OS to a separate screen if you have more than one monitor (as I do with my MacBook Pro laptop screen and the Apple Cinema display). With Parallels, you run the Windows OS inside the Mac OS and run all your Windows native applications (that's the big thing); in other words, the Mac OS must load first, and then you can start Parallels and begin your Windows session, and then run all other apps as you would under Windows. The one disadvantage of this is that the most memory you can allot to the Windows environment is 50% of the machine's total memory. In my case, it's not bad at all, since I have 3 gigs of RAM on my Mac, 50% of that is like running any regular store-bought PC with 1 gig of ram. It's History, and It Will Get More InterestingIt was inevitable. With all the talk about which OS is better, which machine is a better productivity tool, and a broader understanding of User Interface Design and usability as relates to not just making things prettier, but more functional and allowing more businesses with public-facing products to increase market share, the merging of the OSes was inevitable. Just like with PageMaker on the PC and the Mac, I use the Mac for all my Photoshop and graphics work, and the PC side for all my Office applications. What does not bode well here is that Microsoft has constantly been a step behind Apple in its design (or copying, or emulating) of the user interface. They are probably too busy to write a whole new OS that can natively put a Widows environment on a Mac, or for that matter, run Mac's OS on a regular Intel chip PC. In fact, there have been attempts to do so from the Web community, but nothing stands out as being ultimately successful. But if Microsoft wants to retain control of the PC, it better find a way to meld with a Mac on it's own terms. Things are bound to get interesting in the next few years. Only registered users can write comments.
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