Apple Inc (AAPL)

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Ultimately, Apple isn't about supporting Windows—it's about trying to steal customers from Windows.

From Newsweek

...Schiller says Boot Camp is for "switchers" from Windows to Mac who need one or two Windows programs that don't have a Mac equivalent. For others, he says, it will be a comforting "safety net" in case there's a need to run a PC program.

That makes sense, but there's some gamesmanship here as well. Apple has no pretensions of joining the Win world—Schiller insists that the company will never be a formal licensee of Windows, so don't expect the next Mac OS, Leopard, to come with a copy of XP or its successor, Vista. Instead, Apple may be sending a not so subtle message that a direct comparison of the competing systems will leave no doubts concerning which is superior—or safer. When describing the precautions one must take when using Windows, Apple's attitude is similar to a hotel concierge providing an insistent guest with directions to a nightclub in a thoroughly disreputable neighborhood. "When you load Windows you're taking on the risk that entails," Schiller warns, citing the epidemiological woes of the Microsoft world. "There are a lot more security threats than the Mac has ever seen."

Microsoft's response to Boot Camp is telling. You would think there would be celebrating in Redmond—after all, customers who try it must bring their own $199 full-install version of Windows XP to the party. But aside from a welcome statement attributed to a Windows apparatchik, Microsoft execs are refusing to go on the record about this historic development—an indication that this disruptive development may be anything but welcome.

Ultimately, Apple isn't about supporting Windows—it's about trying to steal customers from Windows. The company known for iPod now knows what it's like to imbibe the sweet wine of high market share, and would love a taste of that for its flagship operating system (Macs currently comprise about 4 percent of the PC market). "The thing we market is our innovation and their lack of innovation," says Schiller of that other realm. "At the end of the day there's a place for PC makers who are innovative. And there's a place for people who make boring boxes for the corporate world." Such familiar sniping should assure you that not everything in techland has gone topsy-turvy. Now excuse me while I book my ski trip in hell.

All of the article is at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12227769/site/newsweek/