Graphic By: Julie Brennan

Boot Camp is free beta software written by Apple. The final version will be included in OSX 10.6 Leopard, the forthcoming iteration of OSX. Any Apple computer with an Intel Core processor can run the program. Boot Camp acts as an assistant that will help users repartition their hard drive, configure the system for booting to either OSX or XP and burn a disk containing all of the necessary drivers to have full use of the installed components in new Macs.

Is XP installed on a Mac a viable replacement for a separate computer for each operating system? Yes and no. When using XP, Macs configured with Boot Camp are as good as or better than equivalent Windows PCs. In fact, initial testing has shown that the fastest MacBook Pro benchmarks are better than any other laptop based on the same processor (the Intel Core Duo 2.16Ghz). With the drivers Boot Camp provides for Mac hardware, everything except the remote for Front Row and iSight camera is supported in XP.

This compatibility means gamers who have always steered clear of Apple hardware due to the lack of games for OSX can now boot to XP to play all of the games they so desperately need, while using OSX for their everyday computing needs. More importantly, businesses that need XP for one or more specific software programs for which there is no OSX equivalent can now buy Apple hardware with piece of mind knowing they may boot to XP to use the software they need.

But, as I've alluded to, there are drawbacks to using XP on a Mac. Microsoft and Apple have adopted two different ways to format storage. XP uses NTFS as its file system; OSX uses a different file system that a stock install of XP will not recognize. Mac can read, but not write to, NTFS formatted volumes. The easy solution is to format the XP partition in FAT32, which OSX can read and write to, but this too has drawbacks. FAT32 does not support volumes (partitions) larger than 32GB and does not support files larger than 4GB.

These minor incompatibilities aside, Boot Camp is an excellent way to coax fence sitters to try out OSX. From my experience, once users start using OSX and get accustomed to the Mac interface, they will find themselves using XP less and less. When I bought an iBook, I kept a PC. But after using the OSX for only a few months, I found I never used it, and I sold it.

So, when contemplating a new computer purchase, I would strongly advise consumers to examine what OSX in conjunction with Boot Camp has to offer. With Boot Camp, Apple has positioned itself to make significant inroads into the general computing market, and with Vista delayed, again, 2006 should make for an interesting year in the technology world.