– For years, my desk has been cluttered by two computers — one Macintosh and one PC. It’s been an arrangement of necessity, as I prefer the Mac but sometimes need a Windows machine for work.

So it was with great interest that I read about Apple Computer Inc.’s launch last week of a program allowing newer Intel-based Macs to boot Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system. A day later, another company unveiled software that runs Windows in Mac OS X at nearly full speed.

In both cases, software emulation isn’t required because the new Macs share the same hardware brains as Windows PCs. Unlike Microsoft’s Virtual PC program that lets some Windows programs run on my old PowerPC-based Mac, there’s no significant performance hit.

Read More