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Microsoft Acquires Virtual PC from Connectix

virtual pc is not their only product

MS didn't buy virtualpc so they could kill a program a small percentage of the market uses. they bought the company because they saw some technology they could use for server virtualization and things like that. The reason they bought virtualpc has nothing to do with the mac or mac users running virtualpc on their macs.

Virtual PC allows you to turn a computer into more than one computer. virtual servers in the most real (virtual? real? i'm getting confused) sense.

When are you going to get it through your heads that Microsoft is not out to kill Apple. And apple is not out to kill microsoft. Microsoft is not going to discontinue products like office because they are "pissed off" that apple has made keynote. They are making a profit on office and will continue developing it until it is no longer profitable. not because of emotions like anger.
 
This stinks

WHY would MS need to make Mac Only programs anymore? Most of their programs are free anyway (the ones available on the mac). They can tell anyone that needs an MS program to BUY VPC instead of downloading the free media player/program for the Mac. I think this is bad news.
 
Your comments are laughable!

Oblivious is the word for most of you on this forum!

Anyone that thinks this is a good thing for Apple is mistaken. I'll sum it up this way:

M$ is to DOJ
Bush is to UN

Who's more dominant? Who has the bigger stick?

What I said earlier still applies in the long run, not the short run. But when the 970 matures, it will be one hell of a processor and hard for M$ to ignore that they'll be losing out in the graphics/video/audio markets. This is also a move similar to the one that Apple made with regards to buying out Emagic. The day they bought they said they would be making versions for Windows. Then, they changed course, but that's Apple, they can do that. Microsoft is doesn't have that advantageous position where it can execute actions like that; the consequences are too severe.

Eventually, you will see VPC for Mac running in a Windows environment, in other words on a Windows machine. Hell, they can afford to even put in there for free basically. And Mac OS X cost so much less. Remember though: Apple has the final say so when it comes to licensing their system, so in that, I think we can be rest assured that we'll have VPC on the Mac platform only for the time being. Linux is out though, guarranteed.

If, and when, Apple DOES license out Mac OS X for M$ for their development of VPC running OS X on Windows, it will signal to me that Apple has decided that it would be beneficial for them to market an x86 version of OS X (marklar). The 'ole doomsday scenario!
 
There used to be something called "RealPC". It was a retail product but I think virtualPC took over the emulation market for windows on the mac long ago and whoever made it just stopped updating it and stopped selling it.

If you go to emulation.net you can get a PC emulator called Blue Label. Even though it sounds like a brand of super strength lager and runs slow, it's free so maybe worth using if the worst comes to the worst and VirtualPC is scrapped.

I can think of a terrible situation though.

Picture this.

Windows XP Mac Edition.

with one of the those "built for OS X" logos on 1 side and the huge garish windows logo on the other.

How ashamed would you feel buying that ?

:p
 
They will slow development, release it with bugs, then kill the whole program. We're screwed.
Click to expand...

I totally agree. We are screwed. This ia a real Risk! match wich is going on: mac and Microsoft are trying their best to cut or control important key positions to win the game.
Microsoft will never give mac a competitive product to allow them to make more people switch to Mac.
Micorsoft recently buyed blizzard, too. No more good games for us from them, guys.

...who's gonna win the game? The Giant or Goliath?

We can just sit down and watch.
 
Again, it's not the Mac market that Microsoft is concerned about.

Won't you guys get it. Microsoft is growing in the server markets and this will allow them to extend their server technology.

They have said they will maintain VirtualPC for Mac OS X. Maybe actually add some REAL features to it unlike what Connectix did.

This won't be the end of VirtualPC. Get it right.

benuker, actually, even when Microsoft bought Bungee, they still are going to release Halo for Mac OS X. There have been press releases about it. Get your facts straight.

Microsoft will win the game, because the game is about server virtualization.
 
Apple still holds a major key if M$ ever wanted to do OS X emulation on the PC: the OSX licence. Apple will never sell licences to M$ since they could just market Marklar. Though I doubt that will happen anyway.

If they can make VPC better, then more power to them, but I'm still staying on a mac. Although they could crap it up more than it is now and use it as a way of switching mac users over to Windows.

What would be nice if they used VPC and integrated it with XP so that all of its programs would run without a lot of problems (I hear Win 95 and 98 programs don't run all that well on XP)
 
seriously, if MS "crapped up" virtual PC would that get you to switch to Windows? get real. No one is going to switch to windows because MS makes virtualpc suck. People are going to find alternative applications, and it may be a shot in the arm to developers to make more software to fill the void.
 
Now that Apple is coming up with all these apps that used to come from MS (Safari vs Explorer, Keynote vs PowerPoint, etc) MS is coming up with dirty tricks to hold Apple back. Maybe MS will add Must-Register-Online-To-Activate feature on Virtual PC. Yeah, that will be just great.
 
If MS wants to compete with Apple's latest software, creating hassles, such as the online registration requirement is NOT the way to go. Although that is a bad example since it's only there to protect against piracy, something that shouldn't be done regardless what OS.

Since MS is a software company, as many have correctly stressed, it is only in their best interest to make their revenue go up by creating a better product, not passively hurting Apple.
 
Originally posted by barkmonster
There used to be something called "RealPC". It was a retail product but I think virtualPC took over the emulation market for windows on the mac long ago and whoever made it just stopped updating it and stopped selling it.
Click to expand...

Wasn't it also from Connectix? I think it was DOS-only version of Virtual PC, primarily for playing games (in the days when windows users had to run games from DOS. The poor buggers:D )

I remember that you could install a copy of Windows over the DOS you got with Real PC, so you could create a similar setup to Virtual PC if you wanted.
 
If M$ plan to phase out VP for Mac (as many of us suspect, not phase out but take it out back and shoot it) , then this is a great opportunity for someone else to develop the product. Maybe even Apple!

Imagine a virtual windose app bundled with each new Mac. Switching would be beyond easy!

And I don't see M$ doing Windows for Mac, and even so, they would have to pay Cupertino for a license, surely!

Still, it looks kinda monopolisitc, don't it....
 
Re: virtual pc is not their only product

Originally posted by GutBomb

When are you going to get it through your heads that Microsoft is not out to kill Apple. And apple is not out to kill microsoft. Microsoft is not going to discontinue products like office because they are "pissed off" that apple has made keynote. They are making a profit on office and will continue developing it until it is no longer profitable. not because of emotions like anger.
Click to expand...

You forget there are big egos involved. I'm not saying I think they would cancel it, Gates just likes having Jobs by the ba*ls
 
Guys, Guys!

For f**ks sake, calm down. This isn't a move against Apple. This is a move against VMWare. Microsoft really could give two sh*ts about the 3% (and shrinking) of the P.C. market that uses Macs. (Sure, they will support Office for it, becuase it is moderately profitable and, the real reason, it keeps the DOJ off thier back.)

VMWare is making a killing right now selling their product as a server-consolidation strategy: Run 1 giant IBM boxen (with linux on it) and you can run 10 or 100 windows "servers" on top of it, for outlook, active directory, or whatever. You avoid server sprawl, achieve greater resource utilization and you get rock solid hardware. Plus VMWare lets you "hot migrate" the server between different virtual servers. Basically, they own that space, it is insanely profitable, and it pisses MS off.

This has nothing to do with apple. It might have some negative side effects (though I bet the second they discontinue it you will be able to find it in a heartbeat on P2P networks, just like with OfficeX), but I doubt it. Apple is just too small (and visible) a fish for MS to squish.

Cheers,
prat
 
Who Cares

So big deal VPC is now owned by MS. They'll improve it most likely as they have the source code for their operating systems. Does Apple care? No, they should like it. Apple makes more money on hardware than anything else. If more people switch because of VPC then more people buy Apple products. win/win. Sure OSX is far and ahead of XP, but "Windows on Mac" wouldn't matter that much.
 
Exellent point of view

Originally posted by 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?ViewItem&item=3401785793&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.
Click to expand...

I must a few comments here though to incredible stupidity of so many posters tonight. What are you thinking about in saying that VPC is dead? Huhh.. What...Did you even read the article that you are posting to? It clearly states that the MacBU at MacroHell, I mean Microsoft, will continue development. And why in the heck would they not continue? This gives them more of a piece of the overall computer industry pie. Since they now know that they can win any antitrust suit and actually come out ahead. Also, think of it from this perspective, MS sells the OS to Connectix for close to cost, but Connectix sells it to us at retail. Connectix makes the profit, but now MS will make the profit. I could sit here and ramble on about several other reasons as to why they would want to keep this product, but I am sure you get the point.

CMH
 
i don't know if someone has mentioned this or not, but...

MS now has control of the emulator and the source code for windows. If they really poured some serious work into this, we could end up with a very well done new piece of software.

just my 2 cents...
 
Re: If I were the Mac BU...

Originally posted by Ocelot
Not that I condone this in anyway, but If I was in charge of this division I'd be working on porting Windows XP over to PPC.

Yes- I know it may sound bad, but it makes perfect sense. Microsoft likes making OSes, and in turn sells a lot of them. What would be really interesting is if they allowed you to dual boot in to XP- or perhaps had an extension within OS X (like classic) that allowed you to run windows programs within OS X.

I doubt that's what they have planned, but it makes sense to me, it would allow them to decrease support for the mac and save money. So say you wanted MSN Messenger- they would say: buy XP for PPC, or if you want Office: buy XP for PPC.

This would allow them to cut back staff within the MAC BU, (and yes I believe that would be bad) but it's also more cost effective.

Well this all works in theory- we will see what they have planned...
Click to expand...

Not sure if they could do this because of how Apple builds machines. The OS only starts up because of the ROM Apple uses, which is proprietary, I believe. Meaning, if MS cannot alter the ROM, or use code proprietary to it, then they likely can't get the OS to boot.
 
I hate MS, but if they make virtual pc work with any pc video card or pci card on a mac, they have my money, or at the very least, I will download and use it.
 
Re: Re: If I were the Mac BU...

Originally posted by Mr. MacPhisto
Not sure if they could do this because of how Apple builds machines. The OS only starts up because of the ROM Apple uses, which is proprietary, I believe. Meaning, if MS cannot alter the ROM, or use code proprietary to it, then they likely can't get the OS to boot.
Click to expand...
You're not a PowerPC Linux user, so allow me to educate you so you might understand this a bit better. OpenFirmware isn't exactly proprietary--it's a standard. There are 100% Linux Macs with not a trace of Mac OS and that is possible with OpenFirmware.

It doesn't matter about the ROM, what matters is the boot code and you CAN alter that. For example, it doesn't matter what BIOS a PC uses, all can use GRUB, NTOSLDR, etc. Linux distributions have proven that.

Besides, they wouldn't port it to PowerPC. They have a strong installed base on x86, why waste money to port it if it ain't broke. ;)
 
This is good news for fans of VPC. Right now the product is barely usable. C'mon, how psyched can you get with a PII emulation running windows. Personally, I think they could only make it better. If they don't who cares the product sucks now as it is.
 
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