Running Windows applications on a Mac has long been seen as the holy
grail of acceptance in the workplace. These days there three ways of
ways to make that integration happen. Between Crossover Mac to run
individual applications, Parallels and VMWare Fusion to run Windows
itself under emulation, and Boot Camp, which lets you dual-boot your
Mac into OS X or Windows at need, there are fewer reasons than
ever not to make the switch in your office or school.
Boot Camp
Boot Camp, Apple's dual-boot utility, became available under Tiger
(Mac OS X 10.4) at a time when many enthusiasts had been trying to
shoehorn Windows onto the new Intel-based Macs. Officially supported,
it wasn't especially easy to configure, and driver support was iffy at
best. With the release of Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5), Boot Camp
emerged from beta and became an easy-to-use option, even providing
drivers for Mac hardware on the Leopard installation CDs.
To say that Boot Camp was a resounding success is an understatement.
PC Magazine ended 2007 by declaring the MacBook Pro to be the
"fastest Windows laptop" that they had ever seen. For people who wanted
to make the switch, but who didn't want to lose out on Windows-specific
software (especially games), this was a surefire way to ease their
transition
It is not, however, a panacea. Much like dual-booting with Linux
(which, coincidentally, Boot Camp also allows), you can be in either
OS X or in Windows, but not in both simultaneously. This makes
Boot Camp a solution for gaming, and for some it allows them to live a
double life, booting into Windows when they need their Windows-specific
software, and then returning to OS X for everything else.
Virtualization
For people who need access to one or two Windows packages, but who
don't want to give up the stability, efficiency, and power of
OS X, VMWare,
Parallels,
and Sun offer products that
run a complete instance of Windows in a window. This allows complete
access to OS X while simultaneously running Internet Explorer, for
example, to access an especially poorly designed website. Or perhaps to
run a Windows-only accounting package or graphic design tool.
The benefits are many, of course. You don't ever have to leave
OS X, and you can continue to use the mail, browser, and other
applications that you are familiar with. If you're a recent convert to
the Mac, you can slowly wean yourself off of Windows applications while
you learn your way with the OS X equivalents.
The drawbacks, however, can be severe. Even with a dual-core
processor and significant amounts of RAM, applications tend to run more
slowly in Windows under emulation than they would running Windows in
Boot Camp. This is less of an issue if you're only running Internet
Explorer for cross platform testing, but no 3D application is going to
run well on anything short of a souped up Mac Pro. Your mileage may vary, of
course, but when tested on a 2.2 GHz MacBook with 2 GB of RAM,
nothing ran especially quickly. I imagine the same would not
necessarily be the case with a MacBook Pro.
A Third Option
The final option, and one that should provide a speedier experience,
is to employ Wine (an acronym that
stands for Wine Is Not an Emulator), or its
commercial counterpart, Crossover Mac.
Crossover and Wine, instead of emulating a PC on which to install
Windows, provide a layer of programming that translates system calls
(known as the Application Programming Interface or API) from Windows
applications directly, converting them into calls that the hardware and
operating system can understand, in much the same way that Rosetta
allows PowerPC applications to run on an Intel Mac.
Without the overhead that running a full install of Windows entails,
this solution is often faster than running the application under
Windows in Boot Camp. The drawback is that while many applications are
supported (see the Wine
Application Database), not every Windows application is supported,
and some applications are either too old or were designed too
unconventionally to run well under Crossover.
Running Windows applications on a Mac is always going to require a
sacrifice of some sort, but given these three options, there are fewer
reasons to keep Macs out of business environments all the time. Given
their relatively easy support needs, the breadth of software available,
the move by many businesses towards more Web 2.0 models in their
applications, and now these venues for running Windows applications
when you must, the nay-sayers are going to need to come up with some
new excuses. 
Further Reading
- Leopard Brings About a Few
Changes for Boot Camp Users, Alan Zisman, Mac 2 Windows,
2007.11.30
- Parallels 3 Narrows the Gap between
Virtualized Windows and Using Boot Camp, Alan Zisman, Mac 2
Windows, 2007.06.13
- VMware Fusion Beta 3 Adds New
Features, Takes a Giant Step Toward Release, Alan Zisman, Mac 2
Windows, 2007.04.11
- VirtualBox: A Free, Open Source
Way to Run Windows and Linux on Your Intel Mac, Alan Zisman, Mac 2
Windows, 2007.07.27
- CrossOver: Run Windows Apps on
Intel Macs without Windows, Alan Zisman, Mac 2 Windows,
2007.02.28
- DOS Cards, x86 Emulation, Boot
Camp, and the Future of Windows on Macs, Adam Robert Guha, Apple
Archive, 2006.04.07
