It’s quite astonishing how powerful the Apple juggernaut has become. Apple announces a new utility (Boot Camp) which allows you to load and boot Windows on the new Apples-with-an-Intel-core and it makes headlines in every US national newspaper, even winning an editorial mention one day later in the New York Times. A friend emails me to congratulate me on foreseeing this development. However, he’s misread what I said.

I think quite a few people expected the ability to boot Windows to appear from somewhere—probably some third party. Booting Windows isn’t the deal. I was being a little more precise. Apple users don’t want to keep rebooting their machines as they slip between one OS and another. They will want to run one of the OSes in a virtual machine (using the Intel virtualization capability). Such a capability for the Mac is already available from Parallels Inc for $50. It was announced a day after Boot Camp. My guess is that Leopard will go further than that—allowing you to launch Windows apps from within OS X. Apple may also add a Linux capability, just for fun. If so the release should be renamed Ocelot (OS-alot).

The official Microsoft response to Apple’s Boot Camp was predictable: “Windows is a great operating system. We’re pleased that Apple customers are excited about running it, and that Apple is responding to meet the demand.”

Yeah. That must be what’s happening here. All those Apple users are sick of the virus-free easy-to-use highly productive OS X environment, and Steve Jobs, generous to a fault, is providing them with an easy exit route. Microsoft sure has its finger on the pulse.