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Microsoft Drops Virtual PC For Mac

Tuesday, 08 August 2006 by Michel Roth

Fierce competition in the virtualization space has prompted Microsoft to drop plans to release a version of Virtual PC for Intel-based Macintosh computers. There are now two products available for the Intel Mac platform which allow users to run Microsoft Windows and a third is on the way.

Apple has already released its dual boot utility called Boot Camp as a standalone free product and it will be incorporated into the next version of the Macintosh operating system Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Boot Camp, however, will only run one operating system in a single session and requires rebooting to switch to the other operating system.

Another product called Parallels, developed by a startup company of the same name, enables Intel-based Mac users to run other operating systems including Windows and Linux in virtual Windows alongside Mac OS X. Virtualization software market leader VMware, owned by storage company EMC, has said it will release its own virtualization package for the Mac platform this year.

Microsoft is already behind the virtualization curve in its own PC space, chasing more advanced products from VMware and open source vendor XenSource.

According to Microsoft, its decision to discontinue its Virtual PC project will not affect its development of a universal version of Office for the Mac. However, a delivery date is yet to be announced.

Read more at iTWire.com.