The Hindu : National : Now, Windows option for Apple iMac users

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 08, 2006

National

National

Now, Windows option for Apple iMac users

Anand Parthasarathy

Bangalore: In a stunning development for the world's small, but fiercely loyal, community of Apple computer users, the company has made available a free download that will allow them to switch to its traditional rival, Microsoft's Windows XP environment.

Called "Boot Camp," the download is being offered by Apple as a free "beta" or preview version for now. Owners of the Apple iMac range of desktops and laptops can then have their operating system (OS) cake and have it too. While retaining their native Mac OS X environment they can also install the latest desktop version of Windows (XP) provided of course, they have bought a legal copy. Once installed, they can then choose to boot the machine on Mac or Windows platform.

The sudden move, just days after Apple celebrated its 30th birthday, has caught her customers by surprise. While some blogs or web logs already speak of "sleeping with the enemy," other notings from Windows users extend Mac users a "welcome to the real world."

The advantage for Mac users, particularly those who carry Mac laptops to work, is that they can now switch to Windows to interact with 95 per cent of the world's PC users who are tied to Windows and still retain the superior desktop experience and relative freedom from viruses and worms that the Mac OS has come to represent.

Only days ago, Indian customers were offered the first Apple PCs built around the Intel chip — the mainstay of the Windows platform. Now, they can download a Windows booting option that will make their machine a sort of `ardhanarisweeran': half Windows, half Apple-Mac. The free download site is: http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/

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