It could. But as Craig said, someone would need to let it happen.
«While running Linux is important for many, other users are asking about Windows. Federighi pointed to Windows in the cloud as a possible solution and mentioned CrossOver, which is capable of "running both 32- and 64-bit x86 Windows binaries under a sort of WINE-like emulation layer on these systems." But CrossOver's emulation approach is not as consistent as what we've enjoyed in virtualization software like Parallels or VMWare on Intel Macs, so there may still be hills to climb ahead.
As for Windows running natively on the machine, "that's really up to Microsoft," he said. "We have the core technologies for them to do that, to run their ARM version of Windows, which in turn of course supports x86 user mode applications. But that's a decision Microsoft has to make, to bring to license that technology for users to run on these Macs. But the Macs are certainly very capable of it."»
At no point is he suggesting that it’ll happen.
Absolutely. But does it make business sense for the two companies? They seem to have decided: no.
It could be both, but it’s certainly at least the latter.
(It’s conceivable, at least in theory, that a third party community project hacks this; that they implement Apple’s device tree in Windows’s HAL. It’s been done for Linux.
But I wouldn’t hold my breath.)
