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Over the past several weeks, there was some speculation that the release of Windows Vista would force Apple to delay the launch of Mac OS X Leopard while it resolved Windows Vista compatibility issues with Boot Camp, but the news of Boot Camp update should calm those fears. Boot Camp 1.2 is capable not only of running the 32-bit version of Windows Vista but also of displaying the system's much-touted Aero graphics.
You can even run Windows software." That's the provocative promise that Apple has been making ever since June 2005, when it shocked its diehard supporters with the news that future Macs would run on Intel processors.

A few months later, Apple backed up its promise by releasing a beta version of "Boot Camp," a program that allowed Mac users to install and run a copy of Windows XP as an alternative operating system on its hardware .
In January, Microsoft dampened Apple's sales pitch slightly when it released its new operating system, Windows Vista, which was incompatible with Boot Camp. On Thursday, however, Apple responded by releasing Boot Camp 1.2, an update that not only supports Vista but also incorporates more advanced drivers to improve the performance of Windows programs on Mac hardware.
The 138-MB download is available for free on the Apple Web site to Mac users with Intel chipsets and at least version 10.4.6 of Mac OS X.
Boot Camp and Leopard
Michael Silver, Research Vice President in Gartner's client computing group, described Boot Camp as a "great insurance policy for people on the fence" about whether to buy a Mac or a PC, but said that he doubted it would significantly increase Apple's share of the PC market.
"Programs like Boot Camp and Parallels can increase Apple's market share, or even will," Silver said, "since some people now will make the switch to Mac. But it's certainly not a mainstream solution that will garner a huge percentage of the market, simply because it's so expensive to set up." Silver noted that not only is Mac hardware typically more expensive, but also that Boot Camp and its competitors require a fully licensed copy of the Windows operating system.
As it has from the start, Apple warns Boot Camp users that the program is still in beta mode and is not fully supported. Apple has said that it plans to include a finished version of Boot Camp in the company's own long-planned OS update this year, codenamed "Leopard." Although no official release date has been announced, Apple CEO Steve Jobs told attendees at the 2006 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) that the release would be in the spring of 2007. Over the past several weeks, there was some speculation that the release of Vista would force Apple to delay the launch of Leopard while it resolved Vista compatibility issues with Boot Camp. The news of the update should calm those fears: Boot Camp 1.2 is capable not only of running the 32-bit version of Vista but also of displaying the system's much-touted Aero graphics.

One sign of the growing interest in running Windows on Mac hardware is the number of Boot Camp competitors emerging from software labs around the country.
The best-known right now is Parallels Desktop for Mac, which allows Mac users to run Windows programs in a virtual Windows machine within their Mac environment (thus eliminating the need to reboot into a separate OS). Currently, Parallels does not support the advanced graphics features of Windows Vista, but the company has said that it plans to do so shortly.
Another entry into the virtual space race is VMWare's Fusion, a product that was introduced last August at WWDC and is still in beta as well. Like Parallels, Fusion is designed to run Windows (or Linux or Solaris) programs in the Mac environment without rebooting. The company is specifically targeting the gaming community by promising strong support for Microsoft's DirectX graphics interfaces. "As applications get more OS-agnostic," Silver said, "it opens the door for Mac and Linux or whatever to become an alternative to Windows. But right now, running Windows on a Mac is the most expensive way I can think of to run Windows."