Apple Runs Windows... Oh My

Hell has frozen over in the tech world, and I'm not the first person to use that phrase to describe Apple's recent announcement to run Windows XP on its hardware.

Why is this a big deal? Well there are many reasons, but for me, the top reason is that my Windows programs may soon be running on cool Apple hardware. Some people love Apple's operating system and some love their unique programs. I don't care about that stuff, I want one of those beautiful white iMac's on my desktop. White (like my iPod) and nothing under my desk. Nothing.

I last used an Apple desktop in college. The business school at my university had IBM units by the hundreds down in the basement. They ran WordStar and VisiCalc and some programming languages. Pretty blah.

One day someone turned me on to the fact that the architectural college had these computers called "Macintoshes" and they ran programs called "Word" and "Excel" and they were the BOMB. The gooey operating environment was something I'd never seen before. It had a mouse (there were no mouses to be found over at the business school.)

Those were the days. I bought my first Mac the month I graduated from college... I also received a PC for graduation. So without ever opening the boxes, I sold my first Mac to my brother-in-law. It was close to 20 years later before I bought another Apple product.

Although the Nano and the 30 gigabyte video iPod I bought recently are very cool, nothing has hit me more than the iMac. The 20 inch iMac is the coolest piece of computer hardware I've ever seen. Beautiful and functional. BIG yet a footprint that is INCREDIBLY small. I played with one of these last year in Chicago at the Apple Store on the Miracle Mile. I sat there forever staring at the screen and wondering "why can't Dell make something so functional and stylish."

If the new Windows operating system, which is called Vista, ever comes preloaded on the iMac... I'll buy it immediately.

From a business perspective, Apple stands to gain if others think like I do, they want their PC apps to run on Apple Hardware. I think the potential is huge for the consumer market, but what about the business market? Would large corporate clients invest in Apple iMacs? Perhaps. I can think of one company that might pull the trigger on a few thousand units - Disney - perhaps this will be Steve Jobs' first piece of business on the Disney board.

TK