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Microsoft Acquires Virtual PC from Connectix

Re: From left field

Originally posted by kingjr3

"If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em" Bill Gates
Click to expand...


OH MY GOD :D did he really SAY THAT?


anyway, when i first read the rumor i was a
little nervous. however after thinking about it,
virtual pc is a tool microsoft can use to sell more
software titles. it might be within their interest
to keep vpc alive and well. who knows what will
happen between these two companies.
 
Yeah, microsoft allready gets their money from the fact if you buy VPC, you ARE buying an official copy of windows. They will probably make it so you can only run microsoft OS's. I don't see why microsoft would do this, other than to kindof stall the switcher threat from apple. Since now they would be able to pull a vital product from the switcher market at any time.
Apple will just have to counter this move by either making making VPC useless, or coming up will some brilliant idea
 
they did a good job with Office.. (not with MSN Messenger) maybe they can make this app better.. it wasnt great to start with..
 
twisted chess game

Okay ... Apple realizes that it can risk losing office for Mac and go after MS with stuff like Keynote and Safari.

So MS grabs up something else to keep Apple in line. Would Apple risk losing VPC?

Aside from the price, Office X for Mac isn't that bad. I don't think MS will kill VPC just yet, in fact I think they'll make it better - dare I say, they'll make it indespensible for people like me who want to test their sites and/or software on multiple platforms in one computer.

A smart strategic move for MS, bad news for Apple. It's a twisted chess game, each team vying for control of the board. Apple was, I think still is, gaining a leg up and so MS is trying to make it cost them dearly.

Fun to watch.

I'm convinced VPC won't die, not right away, they haven't even killed Office yet when they could've really hurt Apple at any time by doing that.
 
Just when I thought my day was already bad...

We who use VPC are toast. I use it every day- visio, crm software...

I will tell you why they did it... because no one bought Office and they are pissed off.

Seriously, M$ knows that Apple will always have 3-7% market share...At the end of the day... Many of those 3-7% will have a copy of VPC which is more expensive that XP on a Pentium. Their margins should be decent and they can really say that all machines run windows... Guess they can port it over to linux fairly easily...

Who knows....I think it is a bad thing...
 
If this is true, then I'd specuulate MS would try tomatch apple'ds classic mode, bu includnmg a subset of VPPC fesatures. Byt it's not quite offical-as normally MS would issue a PR afterwards.
 
Its a bad news either way

I am sure M$ is going to continue VPC. We will be so depended on this that M$ can charge whatever they want if you want to fill out your tax etc, as previous poster mentioned. What is the incentive of developers to create a Mac Software if it runs on a emulation mode. So we may have to run more and more software on emulation, and all the money belong to M$. What else is new?

I think M$ really thinks that they can make money selling Mac software, beacause Win maket is getting saturated. This tell me that M$ have more faith in Mac than some mac users, and Mac OS X is the best os ever. And the reverse-switch ads are coming soon too.
 
utilizer is correct...they aren't going to kill this program. Remember that Microcrud is a SOFTWARE company, they don't care where their crudware runs, as long as it's purchased and limping along on someone's machine.

They see the future coming in the 970 (and 980, 990 ;) ) and they want to insure that they will be a part of that game.

Fret not! And as was stated above:

Originally posted by 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.
Click to expand...
 
Originally posted by utilizer
The IBM 970 will clobber any x86 offerring out there later on this year.
Click to expand...

Pure speculation. More likely with will put the Mac in the same class with current top of the line PCs. "If" it is used. The Power5 is pretty expensive, you may lose a lot getting it down to a resonable desktop CPU price point.

Anyway, VPC is so slow it's ridiculous. I've used it. PC Switchers, already have a PC they can keep if they need it. I just don't think MS is after VPC.

If VPC disappeared tomorrow very few would care, IMO.
 
Conspiracy?

If I was going to join the conspiracy theorists, I'd say Microsoft is PO'd by Keynote, Safari, and the number of switchers and will stop developing Office X.

Microsoft will sell only Office for Windows and guarantee its compatibility with VPC. But no more native Office for Mac. This way they won't have to worry about .Net on Mac.

If Microsoft does this, they've written off the Mac, and this would just be a PR gesture to stave off monopoly accusations. We've made sure that Office 2004 will run on a Mac with VPC but it's no longer viable for us to develop a native version for Mac OS.
 
Of course they'll kill it...slowly.

Of course VPC is now dead. It'll die a slow, painful death whether M$ wants it to or not. But they probably do want it dead.

M$ does make a few bucks from Mac users, thanks for VPC (Windows license) and Office X. But they'd make more if we bought a Wintel machine where everyone buys Windows and Office and all the other crap.

I hope this would get some updates into SoftWindows or Blue Label but now they're making a product competing with M$'s VPC. M$ now has a monopoly on Wintel emulation on Macs.

(I can't blame M$ for buying the product line, and I doubt VPC/Mac played into their reasoning. Running a virual machine on any OS is a nifty thing, and I'm sure they'll find uses for it under Windows.)

It's also sad to see the end of Connectix. M$ only acquired the VPC assets, but that's their only current product...
 
MS will continue VPC!

Think about it:

MS wants to continue VPC. They don't CARE about the hardware, remember? They're a software company. The more licenses of MS software they sell, the better.

Think about it: if VPC is so good it integrates into the OS like X11, Mac users will all run out and buy it.

Think about that. If that happens, MS's market share just shot up to, oh, about 99.9%. Because Mac users will ALL be running Windows too!!!

A rather scary thought IMHO. And the problem also is, if VPC gets better, and more integrated, a lot of developers might say "screw developing for Macs, they can just run it in VPC". And then slowly MS takes over the entire OS as we have to use VPC even more and eventually we'll all give up on Macs and move to PCs because there will be so little software...

Ahhh!!!

(of course, this is a worst-case scenario... :) )
 
Originally posted by b3uk
Ha! Maybe M$ actually think that they'll be able to persuade people to switch platforms when they see how *wonderful* XP is!
Click to expand...

You're trying to make me puke, right? Tell me that next time I have food poisoning.

And does anyone else expect a bunch of Teletubbies to suddenly start hopping around the screen on a machine running XP?
 
Originally posted by Rustus Maximus
they aren't going to kill this program. Remember that Microcrud is a SOFTWARE company, they don't care where their crudware runs, as long as it's purchased and limping along on someone's machine.
Click to expand...

This is a point that people really need to realize. future and current Apple products are really raising the bar and bringing in switchers to our market. Microsoft wants more of a chunk.

Just because you bought a mac does not hurt ms. It is that you didn't buy their OS or any of their programs.

If they make it more compatible, they can market their products to Mac users easier without porting each and every one of them.

So now the tech support battle ends between microsoft and connectix. Now I can tell everybody that has a problem with it to just call microsoft. VPC is a tech-support nightmare.
 
Re: MS will continue VPC!

Originally posted by reedm007
...a lot of developers might say "screw developing for Macs, they can just run it in VPC". And then slowly MS takes over the entire OS as we have to use VPC even more and eventually we'll all give up on Macs and move to PCs because there will be so little software...

Ahhh!!!

(of course, this is a worst-case scenario... :) )
Click to expand...

Ok, now I going to start having nightmares, thanks.
 
Now is the time to start a poll to see by how much the price of VPC will balloon, and when.

I can see at least a price increase to $199 or $299 for the upgrades, and $399 to $499 price points for the full whack versions.
 
Originally posted by 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
Click to expand...

I doubt it. My feeling is that MS sees it as a market to exploit. They'll expand their dominance if they're able to sell Windows to parts of the 11% or so portion of the computer market.

I think it is a move to attempt to counter Apple if they decide to play rough over the next few years. Of course, Apple could counter with their own virtual machine that runs a licensed copy of windows - just like they could have an Office app that could read and write the MS format. I just think MS sees a market. Remember, VPC also lets Windows users run other versions of windows inside the booted version of Windows they are running. That could be technology MS wants too.

If the MBU is given free reign, though, then I think we'll see dramatic improvements to VPC for the Mac.
 
Re: From left field

Originally posted by kingjr3

"If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em" Bill Gates
Click to expand...

That's what it seems. There was Bungie who developed Mac games...bought out. When was Halo SUPPOSED to have come out? About 2...3 years ago? Now here is Connectix....or there it was. Time for a new PC emulator to be created.

I tend to use VPC for Chessmaster and some old DOS games, which it seems to run fine for the most part. But my 400 Mhz G4 PowerMac can't run much that requires anything over 66-100 MHZ...maybe even slower. I certainly know it can't run games requiring 200+Mhz at all. Just not playable.

[SARCASM] Thanks a lot U.S. government for letting this monopoly continue on terrorizing the world. [/SARCASM]

I am no longer proud to live in this warmongering, monopolistic country.
 
I dunno... Sounds like the prelude to WindowsFU...

I think M$ wants to have VPC in its back pocket so it can continue to keep Apple in check. If they just "happen" to slow down the release of new versions of VPC and the timeline for Mac-oriented products just "happen" to lag behind that of their windows counterparts, we're back to square one again.

Let's face it: M$ is going to continue to innovate its own Windows OS and the last thing they want is to allow Apple to become the end-all-be-all solution to OS issues. I mean: if, on an Apple, you can run the lastest OSX AND the latest Windows, then you're sitting pretty, right? Even if Windoze is really slow on the Mac, you have "options" to move back and forth between OSs at any time.

Now say, M$ comes out with WindowsFU. ;) Okay, now WindowsFU on VPC just "happens" to come out six months, no... a year and a half after WindowsFU comes out on PC. Meanwhile, AGAIN we have Apple people twiddling their thumbs wondering when we can use the PC programs ourselves. Well, I wonder...gee, whiz, whatdayathinkofthat? "Oh golly, Miss Molly! Could that happen?"

And if you you say "no" to that last question, I would worry for your sanity... (and mine! :D)

Hmmm. I think I'm going to have to make a T-shirt with that on it now: "WindowsFU"... (a lot of scratching of the chin on that one... hmmm.
;) )
 
Originally posted by timbloom
This is a point that people really need to realize. future and current Apple products are really raising the bar and bringing in switchers to our market. Microsoft wants more of a chunk.

Just because you bought a mac does not hurt ms. It is that you didn't buy their OS or any of their programs.

If they make it more compatible, they can market their products to Mac users easier without porting each and every one of them.

So now the tech support battle ends between microsoft and connectix. Now I can tell everybody that has a problem with it to just call microsoft. VPC is a tech-support nightmare.
Click to expand...

I was nervous about aquisition but you rational is interesting. M$ buys VPC to ensure growth. As more peopl switch there will always be some who need windows apps, so by owning VPC M$ guaratees income, both my VPC itself and MS apps. Maybe they'll go ruthless and sell VPC for $300 with no OS.
 
No Reason for Microsoft to invest in two platforms

With ownership of VPC, what sense will it make for Microsoft to continue developing, marketing, and supporting parallel products for both platforms (yes, including Office)? In my opinion very little.

Not that I care, pretty much everything I need is non-MS. I know many Mac users are in a different boat, which really sucks.

I think the only way developers wil come back to the Mac Platform is when Apple's share is back in double-digits...sigh
 
I would like to know how much stock microsoft owns of apple computer. If you look at everything the giant monopoly has been doing it is buying anything remotely apple. Take a look virtual pc,bungie(Halo) Blizzard in the works, Destineer who is in microsofts pockets buys Macplay, If Microsoft doesnt buy out apple it will own all those companies that sell mac software. Monopoly,monopoly,monopoly. I think one day apple may be a microsoft company one way or another get the drift.
 
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