Mac at Work

Chapter 22

Windows on Your Mac

In 2006, Apple switched the Macintosh platform to Intel processors, which are the same processors used on most Windows PCs. Overnight, Macs and PCs got a lot more alike. Apple CEO Steve Jobs had not left the stage from making this announcement before people began speculating about how to run Windows on their new Intel Macs.

It didn’t take long. Today there are several ways to run Windows on your Mac, including Apple’s Boot Camp software, desktop virtualization software, and code interpretation. Now Macs can run Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. Indeed, Apple computers are the only computers that easily run every major operating system on the same computer. You can have your cake and eat it too. In fact, the Mac is so good at running Windows that when Windows Vista was first released, some tests showed that the best hardware to run Vista was a Macintosh.

I once attended a seminar for a Windows-only application and during the first break the speaker practically sprinted toward me to argue how I couldn’t possibly be running his application on a Mac. I bet him lunch that I could, and it was delicious. Once the other attendees saw how easily I was running Windows applications on my Mac, the seminar became more about Macs than the software we were there to learn. I think I sold about 10 Macs that day.

Why Windows?

So as we near the end of this book about working with your Mac in business, you may wonder why on earth you would want to run Windows on ...