After Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that the company’s computers would begin using Intel processors, I openly stated that Macs will run Windows.  Some folks suggested that it would be technically impossible.  Boy, were they ever wrong.

In my previous article, Macs Will Run Windows, I stated,

...Apple’s decision to use Intel processor technology represented a long-term business shift that would carry the company into the mainstream PC market.  Most people disagreed with me…

I read and received comments suggesting that “Macs will not run Windows.”  “Apple will not sell OS/X for PCs.”  And was even called ignorant by an Apple-fan boy who insisted that the whole Intel strategy was a marketing scam.

Today, CNET News.com has published an article explaining the security features implemented in the new line of Apple Macintosh computers that allows Apple’s Operating System to be installed.  This feature is called the “Trusted Platform Module,” and computers without this chip cannot install OSX.  This suggests that Apple had to go out of its way to design technology that would prevent its operating system from being installed on non-Apple computers. 

The real news is not TPM, however.  The real news is the modification of the Apple hardware platform to conform to PC standards.  Steve Jobs is moving down the strategic path that I predicted and is working to make his company’s computers more attractive to the mainstream market.  How long before an agreement with Dell is signed?

The ADC source reported being able to install other operating systems like Windows and Linux onto the test box. But it was impossible, the source said, to install software from the DVD containing the Intel-configured Mac OS onto similar x86-based PCs that lacked a TPM.

Somehow, “I told you so” just seems appropriate.

W.S.