MacRumors.com

Macworld reports on comments by Needham and Company analyst Charles Wolf on Apple's Windows-compatiblilty plans for upcoming versions of Mac OS X.

Specifically, Wolf asked Phil Schiller about Apple's plans for incorporating "virtualization" software in the next version of Mac OS X (Leopard):

[Phil Schiller] said ‘absolutely not, the R&D would be prohibitive and we’re not going to do it. Our solution is dual boot.’

Virtualization allows users to launch a copy of Windows under Mac OS X to run applications side-by-side, while "Dual Boot" requires users to reboot to switch between Windows and Mac OS X.

There had been some speculation that Apple was going to adopt Parallel's virtualization solution since it is now promoted on their Get a Mac campaign, but was conclusion was entirely speculative. Also, early Leopard rumors claimed that it would incoporate Virtualization from Apple, but this appears to be inaccurate.

Meanwhile, Codeweavers is taking this virtualization a step further by attempting to run specific Windows applications under Mac OS X without requiring Windows to be loaded at all.