News, info, and opinion by Mac users, for Mac users.

August 7, 2006

software

Amidst Parallels and VMware excitement, Microsoft kills VirtualPC for Mac

Posted Aug. 7, ’06, 6:33 PM PT by Derik DeLong
Category | Software

VirtualPC Parallels and VMware have been generating tons of excitement in the Mac community (VMware since yesterday). Being able to run the occasional Windows productivity application at near native speed is an appealing proposition. Despite growing Mac adoption, all the software that users crave isn’t available for Mac OS X yet. There’s a huge, growing market for virtualization software.

Naturally, Microsoft takes that as a cue to pull out. That’s not quite fair. The real reasoning is that the real money in VirtualPC was the copy of Windows it bundled. With Parallels and VMware selling those licenses for them, why bother? There’s no reason to compete. They benefit in license sales while they sit back and watch Parallels and VMware try to kill each other. It’s a shrewd move. I have to admit, I’d do the same thing.


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