Once more, with feeling: Boot Camp won’t move Mac users to Windows
Andrew Kantor wrote a column in USA Today in which he suggested - against any sensible evidence - that Boot Camp (the Mac utility that lets you boot between Mac OSX and Windows on Intel-based Macs) would prompt a movement of Mac users to Windows.
Wow - that’s quite clueless, it must be said. If you know a few Mac users you’d know that’s just not going to happen.
Then Jason Snell replies. And then Andrew Kantor sort-of replies on his blog, but twirls the debate around, and not in a good way. He suggests that design pros use Macs just because they always have (er, no), that business don’t buy Macs, but principally misses the point that it’s the high-spending Windows users who will want to buy Macs, because they’ll want to have the cool hardware.
It’s a consumer thing, not a business thing.
And ask yourself this, too. Apple’s got some smart enough people. Would they have released Boot Camp if they’d suspected that it might lead to a migration away? Even a tiny one?
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April 18th, 2006 at 12:32 am
Yeah it’s rubbish. He must have had a low-imagination day. Don’t even bother linking to the report, it’s not based on any tru evidence. Sure, some people will see Windows as the low-cost option, but the move means that after 7 years preparation, Apple is happy to state: “Life’s better on a Mac’”. (Which does not mean life is perfect, by the way - there’s plenty of room for improvement).
April 18th, 2006 at 3:53 pm
The main reason that Apple released Boot Camp was to remove a standard BS objection that IT departments routinely use to veto Mac purchases. Anything that makes life easier for Mac buyers is a good thing.
-jcr
April 18th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
It is conceivable that when Fistula (cheap shot - sorry) finally arrives, people running it on Macs, side by side with Leopard, will be so impressed by its greater stability, security and user-friendliness that they will desert the Mac…
Anybody care to put money on that?
MD.
April 18th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
Churn and slide.
Kantor is right that Boot Camp will increase the number of Mac users who dabble with or migrate to Windows. But that’s immaterial if *a greater number* of Windows users do the opposite. With at least 19 of the former for every one of the latter, I’d grab his money right away if he wants to bet that’s not going to happen. With virtualisation in Leopard, the scales will tip further.
A drift to Mac for the bulk of PC users will however only turn into a stampede when Apple genuinely removes the two sources of pain that people are asked to endure when switching - the loss of time and money invested in Windows software. When people can slide effortlessly across to the Mac and continue to use the software they bought and know until they get used to OS X, the gates will open. Think DarWINE - and no need to shell out for a copy of Vista. Apple has a good recent record on being insightful… I don’t believe they can be unaware of this.
April 18th, 2006 at 9:12 pm
The problem is that all you early adopters that constitute the Mac Press have already purchased MacIntels. That’s why you can’t see the obvious.
Apple released Boot Camp to give “the rest of us”, the PowerMac users, a valid reason to upgrade to MacIntel. Boot Camp is the first major MacIntel only application. It won’t work on PowerMacs.
It’s Apple’s “Think Different” Switch campaign. The different part is that they are trying to get PowerPC owners to switch to MacIntel. I’ll bet Apple has more “MacIntel only” goodies ready to be unveiled at the WWDC.
Suggesting Windows users will trade in their Gateways for MacIntels in order to run Windows is like suggesting Kia owners would buy a BMW if someone figured out a way to make a BMW putter along on regular gas instead of premium.
April 18th, 2006 at 9:57 pm
I think the following will happen: Apple will release a version of bootstrap that works on Windows PCs and when Vista comes out and the windows world starts to upgrade the pc version of bootstrap will start to appear on old windows hardware gaining a new life for older hardware and an increase in Apple marketshare. After all its only a $100ish investment for the owner of the old hardware, Darwin is open source and a lot of drivers have been/will be written to make things work, and OSX is immune to the virus/mallware issues that have crippled Windows machines for years so OSX will probably look good by comparison, even if it means people dumping some unsupported peripherals.
The last time this happened was y2k when old hardware and linux had a romance. I think Jobs is hoping to do the same. If folks like OSX they may load it up on their Vista machine or better yet buy an IntelMac and load Vista on that. Either way Apple gets money and marketshare they otherwise wouldn’t have.
April 19th, 2006 at 2:58 am
As an Apple retail employee I can tell you that since Boot Camp was released, we have been selling MacBook Pros’ like hot-cakes. Matter of fact we had to overnight a new shipment of them twice just to keep up with demand. I hear users say quite often that they always thought about a mac but needed a windows only program. And never bought one because of it.
April 19th, 2006 at 5:51 am
Brandon,
Thanks for that report. Even though it is anecdotal it does seem to make sense to me. I don’t think Michael Dell should be losing any sleep yet but this could portend a moderately large shift in Apple’s market share.
April 19th, 2006 at 12:23 pm
Compelling comments by a number of people. As a computer science prof who has watched my school maintain banks of PCs and Macs because each has its loyal following, the bean counters at my school will see the obvious: buy Intel Macs with bootcamp to replace older machines of all makes and everyone is happy. Maintenance costs may drop some with one line of hardware to maintain and Apple traditionally has been somewhat more reliable on the hardware side. Business people who would like a Mac for its lower hastle factor but need a Windows application to use at night from work are likely to show up at Apple stores saying “I’m curious. Show me how this works.” With reports of triple booting, including Linux, and some sense of how Macs can cost less over time to own, I see a doubling of Mac sells over the next two years. If Microsoft continues to have trouble getting Vista out the door, double that again.
Given reports of some decline in iPod sales and music players generally, suddenly Boot Camp looks like the talk of the town. Apple’s ability to twist and turn and reinvent itself in a complex market continues to be remarkable.
April 25th, 2006 at 6:02 pm
See, and I know I’m going to get grief for this, but I think you are just about all wrong.
All the above comment is predicated on the assumption that there is a tangible ‘betterness’ with a Mac. When quite obviously there isn’t. Sure, there is a preference for the Mac among lots of people (for all sorts of non technical reasons) but the biological, or perhaps more accurately, Darwinian fact is more use the PC. And thus more have invested time and effort to master their PC.
It is all too easy for people to frown and point a finger at Microsoft and say ‘bad people’ while stroking a Mac in an attempt to increase their alpha waves.
It is fairly obvious that there will be a lot of Mac users getting XP on their machine. There are more programs on the PC and the likelihood is one of them will do something that the Mac software vendors can’t.
But PC users getting OSX - why? The XP eco system may not be as soft focus and cuddly as the Mac’s (isn’t?) but, well, it does. That is; it does its job. People know and use their PCs with XP. Why on earth should they want to learn a new interface and have less software. Do we honestly think that the vast majority of users could even comprehend the idea of ‘enjoying’ the use of their computer, let alone actively seeking out an alternative operating system to try it.
And then why on earth would they want to run TWO operating systems? I mean, we don’t expect them to throw away their pirated copy of Office and move to a Mac version of office do we. OpenOffice? Ok, but why do you think there are so many pirated copies of MS Office out there?
Why on earth wouldn’t they move to Linux if they want to live in the fast lane - more people use Linux than OSX, and this highlights the flaw in the pro OSX argument: the firefox effect. ‘We don’t need no education, we don’t need no thought control’ and if we are going to get ourselves a new operating system lets get one we control ourselves - not ones that we have pay money to egomaniacs for. Cue Dave Gilmour guitar solo.
I’ll get me coat.
April 25th, 2006 at 6:24 pm
I don’t think it’s about the concept that there’s “betterness” in a Mac. Though arguably there is more convenience; I spent half an hour today talking to someone who was convinced that an email he’d received had installed spyware and all sorts of stuff on his computer, and that his bank account had been compromised. I looked at the computer: an iBook G4. Well, that was it for the spyware argument; the rest was sorted pretty quickly.
The point is that the sort of people who’d buy a Mac and then put XP on it are not the sort who are looking for “cheap”. They’re the people at the Microsoft Mac BU - geeks with a lot of cash and a need to run Windows, but who can geek around a bit too, and like something that looks nice.
The argument is absolutely *not* that Boot Camp will cause any sort of mass movement from Windows. It won’t. But equally, it’s never going to cause a movement from OSX to XP, because if you’re running Boot Camp, you’ve *already* got OSX, so you’ve got all that investment to move over to Windows, where you won’t get iLife, or other bundled apps that you need to get, plus the antivirus, antispyware, etc etc. The cost hurdle of moving from OSX to Windows is *at least as high* as in the other direction; but Apple has slightly lowered the XP->OSX cost by letting you run both on the same machine.
As for the Linux On The Desktop (LOTD.. they could make a film series..) - it’s like Brazil: the future, and it always will be.
April 25th, 2006 at 6:44 pm
Hmm.
I already know someone who is going to get XP on their mac so they can run software on it they would have had to have a PC for.
But there is no compariable move the other way - barring ISTM Final Cut Pro, which IMHO is no better than Prem Pro 2.0 - there seems little reason to move to OSX *other* than to thumb ones nose at MS.
It seems to me Intel has won the war, and apple are about to realise they’ve not got anything other than over marketing the iPod as a future - and when it looks down will see its run out of cliff.
Yup that’s right - I’m supposed to be writing news