Based on quotes in a Mercury News report from both Apple and Microsoft, you will in fact be able to set up a dual-boot environment and run both Windows and Mac OS X on one of the new Intel-based Macs announced yesterday. If you missed Steve Jobs' keynote, pop over to Engadget and read their blow-b-blow coverage for more details on everything announced by The Steve.
From Apple:
"Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, said in an interview Tuesday that the company won't sell or support Windows itself, but also hasn't done anything to preclude people from loading Windows onto the machines themselves.
"'That's fine with us. We don't mind,' Schiller said. 'If there are people who love our hardware but are forced to put up with a Windows world, then that's OK.'"
From Microsoft:
"'Any new machines that are on the market that run Windows are great,' said Scott Erickson, director of product management and marketing for Microsoft's Mac business unit.
Erickson said it was too early to say how Microsoft might take advantage of an ability to run Windows on Macs, saying only that it could give Mac users the potential to run Windows-based applications they previously couldn't."
1. I'd like to see you try and install Windows on one, they don't use BIOS, therefore no XP for you ;-)
I'm not saying it won't happen... it's just not going to happen out the box.
Posted at 6:05PM on Jan 11th 2006 by SPeedY_B