From the Dark Side--M$ Buys Virtual PC from Connectix

according to yesterday's CRN article. There were, however, no press releases on Connectix's or Microsoft's web sites yesterday. The official announcement is expected today.

In a brilliant tactical maneuver to one point of view, Microsoft seized Apple's enterprise toehold. Virtual PC allows Macs to run most Windows software, albeit slowly, and this is the single reason why at least some Macs are able to persist in an enterprise Windows environment.

Microsoft tried to put the best light on it by claiming that they will develop and improve Virtual PC for the Mac. There is ample room for this since Virtual PC has recently received a lot of critcism on its Mac OS X versions. M$ has, indeed, provided an outstanding office suite in Office v.X so reality may match the claim.

CNet's article says the move was to allow M$ to develop servers that will run each Windows OS as a virtual machine. This rings true since Virtual PC is brilliant at being able to run multiple OS's.

Quite frankly, Virtual PC's day in the sun may be passing. At one time we were absolutely dependent upon Virtual PC to persist in a Windows environment. But in recent years, most application development has been web based which is largely platform independent. In addition, Mac OS X is very interoperable on a Windows network of Wintels. We are no longer dependent on Virtual PC but still do use it from time to time as a convenience. Only time will tell the true result.