Microsoft Acquires Virtual PC from Connectix

[MacRumors]

MacCentral reports that Microsoft has acquired Virtual PC from Connectix:

According to a statement by the director of marketing and business for the Macintosh Business Unit (of Microsoft):

"What this means for Mac users is that Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit (MacBU) will be responsible for supporting and shipping all current versions of Virtual PC and development for all future versions of the product"

According to the article, the MacBU will work to make Virtual PC work even better both with Windows and Mac OS X

The goal for the MacBU is to have seamless compatibility between Windows and Mac OS X, according to McDonough.

[Clockwork]

I believe this is a very smart move indeed by Microsoft. They now have control over an application which was advertised to alot of switchers. I am looking forward to see if Microsoft will exploit or enrich this piece of software.
If they can make the damn thing move faster then good. The best thing would be if the made it invisible, so that you could just run x86 apps directly from OSX without the whole Windows interface. Don't know if that would work though...

[DHagan4755]

Bye-bye Virtual PC.

[Das]

Well, if there is a positive side, at least it's that VPC will get even better...I hope...Hopefully better gaming performance if that's not being too optimistic.

[jeremy.king]

But given Connectix's experience with the Mac platform and now officially working for Microsoft, does this mean that Windows could at some point in the far future be ported to run natively on Mac hardware???

Call me a conspiracist, but I don't like the fact that the one tool for us who need to run windows software on our macs, is now owned by microsoft...

"If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em" Bill Gates

[J@ffa]

Eek. This could turn into a major situation... I'm fairly sure VPC is pretty important to Apple, and to go around pissing Microsoft off after this isn't the best move in the world...

[pimentoLoaf]

VPC allows for drag-'n'-dropping of PC files into os9/x and vice-versa; with the addition of MacLink Plus Deluxe (and I don't remember the name of the PC version), one can truly translate files between os's.

MS won't cancel the product.

[smegdude]

its quite obvious that m$ are gonna kill off vpc, why would they support a product who's whole use is to run their OS on a rival system?
if they do make it better then i can pretty much guarantee that m$ will be charging much more for their new OS's, makeing it more economical just to buy a new pc.

RIP VPC

[nighthawk]

If MS EOL's VPC, that might be the BEST thing that can happen!

The Apple would get involved and port WINE to run native to OSX, and without the NEED to buy WindowsXP OS, we have Windows compatiblity. Who knows, Apple might decide to do that anyways even if MS did continue the project. It would be a definite key selling point to OSX 10.3 or 10.4.


On the other hand, MS could port/update their WindowsXP OS code to the PowerPC, with an emulator only for application calls which would speed up the VPC tremdously.

Either way, I see it as an advantage.

[rainman::|:|]

well, at least we got a mostly decent OS X version of VPC before it dies. this is pretty sad-- i have a few predictions as to what MS will do here, and none of them are good.

pnw

[Clockwork]

to go around pissing Microsoft off

This does'nt necesserily meen that Microsoft are pissed off at Apple's business tactics.
As the article stated they are first and foremost interested in Connectix Virtual Server.

[nanosound]

Why would MS want to kill it off? You are actually purchasing a licensed version of Windoze. That's all the better for them. I think they will improve a piece of crap product that Cntx was charging us a bundle for, like the upgrade to 6.

[yzedf]

VPC 6 runs so frickin slow... it is just a waste of time. (reference is 800MHz iBook w/ 640MB RAM running VPC 6 w/ XP Pro) If I want to run a windows program that bad, get a used celeron/duron system and use that, assuming you don't have access to a PC in some other manner. Difference in price isn't all that big.

[G4scott]

m$ fights back.

Apple, it's time for you to open the gates of hell upon microsoft, and unleash the fury that is what you have hidden from us that will surely defeat microsoft...

One OS to rule them all
One OS to find them
One OS to bring them all
And in the darkness bind them

[backspinner]

bye bye new appleworks

it apple makes microsoft angry, MS will stop virtual pc and we won't be able to fill in the electronic tax form, to name just an important example for me

[Stelliform]

Originally posted by nighthawk


Either way, I see it as an advantage.

But what if they kill it outright? Wine will take at least a year to get up to snuff. It would be a setback to apple.

[springscansing]

I do not really understand virtual PC. It runs so damn slow. For under 300 bucks, you can get an Athlon 900mhz system, 256 RAM, 60GBHD, 10/100 ethernet, DVD-ROM, and a geforce4mx 64MB graphics card.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...&category=4317

Right there. Same price as Virtual PC, and KICKS ITS ASS in every way possible.

1 hour left... someone better jump on it.

Please, someone explain to me why Virtual PC is good.

Connectix's Playstation emulator was also stupid. 50 bucks for the program, 40 bucks for two controllers... just buy a damn playstation already! Even Steve Jobs said that.

And RAMdoubler was slow as hell and terrible... speed doubler didn't double much...

I personally could care less about Connectix. Someone prove me wrong.

[utilizer]

Originally posted by nanosound
Why would MS want to kill it off? You are actually purchasing a licensed version of Windoze. That's all the better for them. I think they will improve a piece of crap product that Cntx was charging us a bundle for, like the upgrade to 6.

Windows and Mac joint developers: it's imperative that you continue to develop a Macintosh version of your software now. A Windows version just won't cut it nowadays. We see this in Intuit's Quickbooks, which I say kudos to them! This is the reason why Microsoft is making this move today.

MY PREDICTION:

The IBM 970 will clobber any x86 offerring out there later on this year. M$ knows this. People are pretty content with the computers they have now. They are sufficient enough for the day to day tasks. PROFESSIONALS that need to work FASTER will be buying the Macs b/c they will be siginificantly faster at tasks. Microsoft loses market share.

By making such a move, they will then develop a Virtual PC version for Windows that runs Mac programs, therefore launching their own true switch campaign. The Virtual PC for Mac will be killed and most likely, Virtual PC for Windows will be built into the system as some sort of component, much like Classic is in OS X.
You can run iTunes, iCal, etc.

I sure hope I'm wrong but this could be the time for Apple to get the "virtual carbon paper" out and start copying the major Windows programs that come out only for Windows, and not for the Mac platform in the future, thereby making their own unique program.










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[alset]

They will slow development, release it with bugs, then kill the whole program. We're screwed.

Dan

[backspinner]

I thought that WINE works only on x86 linux platform? It's only a software interface and not a processor emulator.

On another note: the Mac is not a rivaling platform for microsoft as long as you talk hardware. OS X is a competing platform. Microsoft would be happy to sell it's OS to mac people. oh well.

[eric_n_dfw]

In the prior thread, a couple of people mentioned WINE and a derivitive product called Crossover Office.

Per the WINE FAQ:

3.1. Under what hardware platform(s) and operating system(s) will Wine(Lib) run?

Wine is being developed specifically to run on the Intel x86 class of CPUs under certain UNIXes that run on the x86 platform.

NetBSD, OpenBSD, Unixware, and SCO OpenServer 5 worked at one time, but Wine now requires kernel-level threads which are not currently available (or understood by the Wine team) in those platforms.

It would be quite a herculean effort to get WINE to work on non-x86 hardware and even then, the Windows .exe files are not compiled for it so I don't even think it would work.

Wine is not an emulator - it's akin in the mac os classic mode in OS X. No emulation is being done as the PPC hardware already exists.

I hope we see better/faster VPC versions from MS since they can now write direct hooks into the win32 code if they wanted to.

[Clockwork]

it apple makes microsoft angry, MS will stop virtual pc and we won't be able to fill in the electronic tax form

wtf?!? Is the Dutch electronic-tax form a Windows only application? Don't you people have laws to prevent things like that? Then I definetly would not fill in my tax form...

[etoiles]

Originally posted by Das
Well, if there is a positive side, at least it's that VPC will get even better...

LOL
hey man, it was bought by MICROSOFT !

[b3uk]

Ha! Maybe M$ actually think that they'll be able to persuade people to switch platforms when they see how *wonderful* XP is!

[Stelliform]

Originally posted by nanosound
Why would MS want to kill it off? You are actually purchasing a licensed version of Windoze. That's all the better for them. I think they will improve a piece of crap product that Cntx was charging us a bundle for, like the upgrade to 6.

But you are purchasing a cheaper version of windows. From my pricing, up to $100 cheaper than a full version of windows.