Why Boot Camp is the Beginning of the End for Windows?
I am clueless, but this blog by Sam Gerstenzang is interesting. Extract:
State of the Market
Upon the release of Boot Camp, the whole market has suddenly changed. Two weeks ago, roughly 95% of the personal computer could run Windows without any hacks, and 5% of the market could run OS X. Now, 100% can run Windows and only 5% OS X. Intially, this might look bad for OS X, a so-called "Osborne effect" on the horizon, but on closer examination it exactly the oppisite. I'd place even money that Macbook Pro sales doubled or even tripled on the day Boot Camp was released, solely from the purchases of system adminstraters who have to deal with both operating systems. This isn't limited only to techies though, the education market is also going to blossom. Schools who have tradionally run two computer labs, one Mac, one Windows, can now have a dual purpose labs. And more importantly, support from a single company. Business sales will also go up because of the availability of reliable and lightweight laptops. Home sales will go up because of the ability to run Windows business applications and games at the same time as having a digital iLife (and super sexy, super thin computers as well).
Everyone a winner? Not quite.
This first appears to benefit both Apple and Microsoft equally, both get increased sales and the only companies that should be worrying are the likes of Lenovo, Gateway, HP and Dell. But on closer examination, this isn't at all true. The vast majority of sales of Windows intended for the Mac will be from people who would have purchased Windows anyway, just included on their Dell or whatever their former PC manufacture of choice was. The small number of number of sales generated by people who would have bought a Mac anyway but now also want to run Windows will be countered by the increased amount of piracy that will surely ensue because Windows won't come bundled with hardware anymore. This does increase Macintosh market share though, because every sale of a dual-booting Macintosh is, well, a sale of a dual-booting Macintosh. Let's play this conservatively, and say in the next 5 years Mac sales double. We're now in a world where 10% of the computer market belongs to Apple, and Windows sales begin to slow due to new Macintosh users who are tired of dual-booting and realize they don't need Windows actually anyway. The OS X software market flourishes with more sales for third-party developers. Windows is still a monopoly, but to a lesser extend then before.
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