Compiled by Charles Moore
and edited by Dan Knight
- 2006.07.13
This Week's Macintel News
Will going Intel and supporting Windows boost Mac sales? As
always, the pundits disagree, with Piper Jaffray promising growth
while Seb Janacek doesn't expect it at all.
Between Boot Camp, Parallels Desktop, and the forthcoming
CrossOver, we'll have more ways of running Windows on Macs than
ever before. This week Ars Technica digs into Parallels Desktop,
and MacWindows reports better performance when you assign less RAM
to Windows.
On a barely related note, Intel's ill-fated Itanium chip (which
we dubbed Itanic back in 1999) is in the news again as Intel is
finally ready to release Itanium 2. It's a server-class CPU that
only HP has had decent success using. Nothing of interest to Mac
users, really, but it is nice to point out that Intel has made some
real blunders over the years.
PowerBook, iBook, and other portable computing news is covered
in The 'Book Review. General
Apple and Mac desktop news is covered in The Mac News Review.
Macintel News
Intel News
Macintel News
Windows-friendly Macs to Boost Apple
Forbes reports:
"Apple's Boot Camp software, which enables Windows software to
run on Mac computers, should positively impact Mac market share as
early as the third quarter of this year, according to a new Piper
Jaffray research report.
"The new Piper Jaffray survey found that, out of 42 near-term PC
shoppers, 8.3% of the respondents said they would buy a Mac
computer instead of a PC because of the Boot Camp software, which
is still being tested."
- Link:
Windows-friendly Macs to Boost Apple: Report
Move to Intel Won't Equal Market-share
Boost
Silicom.com's Seb Janacek says:
"One by one Apple is addressing the objections to going Mac -
from switching to Intel chips to accepting Windows. So can we
expect a major PC-to-Mac migration? Seb Janacek isn't betting on
it.
"Apple has announced that a host of executives including CEO
Steve Jobs will preview the next version of the Mac OS X operating
system - a.k.a. Leopard - at its Worldwide Developers Conference in
early August.
"While Mac OS X 10.5 represents the pinnacle of a sustained
period of innovation from Apple and no doubt will be embraced by
its dedicated user base, Leopard is unlikely to alter either the
company's market share significantly, or its perception in
corporate IT departments or even among large numbers of individual
PC users."
- Link: Will
Acceptance of Intel and Microsoft Equal Market-share
Boost?
Windows Apps Cross Over to the Mac
InfoWorld's Neil McAllister reports:
"Owners of Intel-based Macintosh computers are still waiting for
versions of many of their favorite applications that are built for
the new hardware. Although Apple's code translation technology is a
marvel, it's no substitute for software that runs natively on the
x86 platform. But Mac owners will soon have a new source of
professional-grade, commercial software for their beloved machines.
The catch is that the software was meant to run on Windows.
"Forget Boot Camp. Booting Windows on Apple hardware is an
interesting sleight of hand, but this is different. What
CodeWeavers is offering is the ability to actually run Windows
applications from within Mac OS X. CodeWeavers' commercial
product, CrossOver Office, is based on the open source Wine
project, technology that has made it possible to run many Windows
applications on Linux systems for almost 10 years. By early August,
it will do the same for Mac OS X with CrossOver Mac."
- Link: Windows
Apps Cross Over to the Mac
Leopard Will 'Absolutely Not' Include
Virtualization
Cult of iPod's Pete Mortensen reports:
"Cool little tidbit over at Macworld in an article about the
potential for Apple to increase its corporate marketshare.
"Long story short, Apple has no real potential to increase its
corporate marketshare (there are a few opportunities, but it won't
be a quantum leap).
"The most interesting tip, and one that seems too frank for
Apple, comes from analyst Michael Wolff...."
- Link: Schiller:
Leopard Will 'Absolutely Not' Include Virtualization
Ars Technica Reviews Parallels Desktop
Ars Technica's Dave Girard reports:
"Move over emulation, virtualization is in and it's hotter than
two Jessica Albas wresting the devil himself in a pit of molten
steel. It's no contest, virtualization has it all: multiple
operating systems running on the same machine at nearly the full
speed of the host's processor with each system seamlessly
networking with the next. Add to that the fact that it's cheaper
than getting a new machine and you have the guaranteed latest
craze. Not even the Hula Hoop can stop this one.
"Okay, virtualization isn't totally new - it's just new to Macs
and Parallels
Desktop is the first out the door with a 1.0 product
for Mactels. For those that are just getting to the party, here's a
bit of a breakdown on virtualization. The idea is that program acts
as a virtual machine (VM) and its job is to be the PC (one of the
more boring drama classes), tricking the client OS into thinking
it's inside a real x86 machine with a physical hard drive,
keyboard, Ethernet card, etc., when in reality, it's merely
grabbing unused CPU cycles and RAM inside another OS to do it's
thing.
"The benefits are pretty clear over a real PC: It's running on
the Mac you know and love but you're not sacrificing access to the
occasional Windows-only app that you might need. Maybe you have a
copy of Office XP for Windows and don't want to shell out for the
Mac version. Sure, you could load up Apple's Boot Camp, but using a
program like Parallels - or its competitors VMWare, WINE and MS'
Virtual PC - means you don't have to reboot just to use that
accounting program at work.
"It is a great prospect and now even Apple is recommending
running Parallels on their Get a Mac site."
- Link: Parallels
Desktop 1.0 for Mac OS X Reviewed
Better Parallels Desktop Performance with Less
RAM
MacWindows reports:
"Tests show that less is more with Parallels.
"Sylvain Jette sent us test results that indicate better
Parallels Desktop performance with less RAM assigned to Windows.
Jette also found that this is not the case with iEmulator running
on an Intel Mac.
"This Parallels behavior is not what users have come to expect
with running Windows on Macs. Ever since the first emulators began
appearing for Macs, assigning more memory to Windows has been a
method of increasing performance."
- Link: Better
Parallels Desktop Performance with Less RAM?
Notebook Makers See Demand Pick Up after CPU
Price Cuts
DigiTimes.com's Celia Lin and Jessie Shen report:
"Compal Electronics and Wistron posted on-month revenue growth
in June, following sequential slides for two consecutive months.
Quanta Computer and Inventec, who have not yet released their June
sales figures, are expected to also post an increase in
revenues.
"Pickup in demand in the worldwide notebook market can be
attributed to Intel's price reductions of its Core Duo CPU line in
early June, according to market sources."
Apple's MacBook launch
was scheduled to take advantage of this price cut, which also
allowed Apple to speed-bump the 15" MacBook Pro with no increase in
price. dk
- Link: Notebook
Makers See Demand Pick Up after CPU Price Cuts (subscription
required)
Intel News
Daul-core Itanium 2 on the Launch Pad
eWeek's Jeffrey Burt
says:
"Intel is preparing to launch its long-awaited dual-core Itanium
2 processor, dubbed 'Montecito,' in July, the latest attempt by the
giant chip maker to re-establish its technological dominance in the
server space.
"Intel will announce the chip at an event in San Francisco July
18, according to two sources close to the company. An Intel
spokesman declined to confirm the date."
Editor's note: Intel's Itanic, which is incompatible with its x86 line of CPUs,
has been
called "the most expensive and protracted flop in the history
of the semiconductor industry." For more on the ill-fated CPU, see
Itanium or Itanic?
dk
- Link: Intel's
'Montecito' Finally on the Launch Pad
