Apple Computer has released a software patch titled “Boot Camp” that will allow an Apple with Intel processor to dual boot to either their OS X or Microsoft Windows XP. Apple won’t support the “Boot Camp” software or the XP installation on their computers.
Why Apple thinks this would encourage PC users to switch to their overpriced computers is unclear. The articles that I read also does not state whether you will need to get proprietary drivers to make Windows XP run on your Apple.
A more detailed article can be found at C-Net.
It is unclear whether there are architectural differences between the Intel Pentium family of processors and those being utilized by Apple that could affect the performance of Windows XP on the Apple platform.
In previous generations of Microsoft Operating Systems based on Windows NT, Microsoft supported RISC microprocessors such as MIPS, Alpha and Apple’s Power PC. This was discontinued many years ago.
Last time, Microsoft modified their OS to run on the Apple platform and this time Apple has modified their platform to run Microsoft’s OS.
It is fun to watch the love/hate relationship that Apple has had with Microsoft over the years. If Microsoft hadn’t bailed-out Apple a few years back Apple’s music download and iPod empire would never had been possible and Windows Vista would never have been created.