<p>“I’m talking about virtualization for backwards compatibility, not
virtualization for running a completely different OS. For example,
Apple dropped support for OS 9 virtualization with Leopard.”</p>
<p>Virtualization is a consumer product now. At least for Macs.</p>
<p>Quote:
Palm Desktop.
Office 2000 (our Corporate standard)
Cisco VPN
MSYS (there’s a patch to get it to work and I’m doing some hacking to
try to get it to work).
Various Visual Studio/Platform SDK/SDK tools. I got my first BSOD
on the new machine trying to install Microsoft’s own tools on Vista
x64.
Antivirus software. The salesperson specifically asked me what office
and antivirus programs I was planning to use and apparently had a
list of applications that didn’t run or didn’t install on x64.
Embedded Flash, Java in 64-bit browsers.</p>
<p>“Most of those programs are for the commercial sector. Once again, I’m
referring to consumers.”</p>
<p>Palm Desktop is a consumer product.
Microsoft Office, especially the student and home edition is a
consumer product.
There are colleges that use VPN for network access.
The Visual Studio Express editions are not commercial software. And Microsoft has a student program where students can get Microsoft’s development tools and an operating system for free.
I think that it’s pretty safe to say that consumers use Antivirus programs.
I also think that it’s safe to say that Java and Flash are used in consumer and student applications.</p>
<p>“That must be a problem specific to your system, then. According to the
iTunes page, 64-bit Vista is supported.”</p>
<p>I don’t understand why you said that. I said that I’ve been running
iTunes on x64 for several years.</p>
<p>“The problems with Hackintoshes display how closely OS X is integrated
with Mac hardware, meaning that optimization of things such as battery
life are very easy to do, in comparison to Windows.”</p>
<p>Not really. The processors, video cards, disks, chipsets can be the
same. As far as incompatibility goes, you can have that on Windows
systems too where a manufacturer doesn’t provide a driver for your
particular piece of hardware and you have to go with a generic driver.</p>
<p>If you have some specific aspect of power management that you want to
discuss as to why it works better on a Mac, I’d be happy to ask my
hardware engineering guys about it. But my estimate is that antivirus,
DRM and expensive graphics overhead contributes significantly to power
costs. Waving your hand about incompatibility doesn’t make your case.</p>
<p>“By that time, 64-bit should be well supported. If a 64-bit OS comes
preinstalled, drivers aren’t going to be an issue. The only issue is
3rd party software, in which support for 64-bit software is being
added all the time.”</p>
<p>Microsoft provided x64 betas in 2003. Since that time, driver support
has improvedb but they really took their time in pushing hardware
companies for that support. That’s what happens when you have
excellent software engineering but poor product management and
marketing.</p>
<p>My point earlier is that Apple already has seamless integration and
they’ve had it for a while. Despite Microsoft’s multiyear lead in
getting out an x64 operating system.</p>
<p>“Apple’s? There isn’t anything particularly wrong with it that makes it
worse than any of the other companies’.”</p>
<p>It’s slow. Sometimes to the point of being unusable.</p>
<p>“This does play a big part, but it’s augmented by their physical
stores and the halo effect from the iPod/iPhone. It’s very easy
for a salesperson at an Apple store to get someone who walks in
to buy an iPod or iPhone to walk out with a MacBook as well.
So they don’t have to get the customer into the store; the
iPod/iPhone does that.”</p>
<p>Apple has around 270 stores. That is dwarfed by the number of
stores that sell PCs.</p>
<p>The Apple salespeople are very low-key. They don’t get someone to buy
something. They offer to provide help or information. From what I can
see, most people come in with the intention to buy something, to get
help from the Genius Bar, to get information on a product, to use the
free internet access or to hang out (for teens and bored husbands
waiting for their wives to finish shopping).</p>