Microsoft, Apple Sign 5-Year Software Pact
SEATTLE - Apple Computer Inc. won't thwart users from loading Microsoft's Windows operating system onto its new Intel-based Macintosh computers _ but don't expect Apple to start offering a Mac running Windows. — Phil Schiller …
Context & Ripple Effects
The announcement landed mid-keynote: Steve Jobs used the 2006 Macworld stage not just to unveil the first Intel-based Macs — the MacBook Pro laptop and iMac desktop that Wired, PC World and Bloomberg all covered the same day — but to signal how open the new hardware would be. The story traveled unusually far for a licensing footnote: the Washington Post, Bloomberg and the enthusiast press picked up the Associated Press wire within hours.
The substance is narrow but loaded. Apple confirms a five-year software agreement with Microsoft, confirms it will not block users from installing Windows on Intel Macs, and — through hardware chief Phil Schiller — explicitly denies any plan to sell a Mac that runs Windows out of the box. Apple gets the credibility of openness; Microsoft gets contractually secured relevance on hardware it does not control.
First-order effects
- Buyers of the new Intel Macs can put Windows on Apple's hardware themselves, making every Mac shipped in 2006 a potential two-operating-system machine from day one.
- Microsoft locks in a guaranteed role on Apple's platform for five years, while Apple publicly rules out ever preinstalling Windows — keeping the OS sale, and the customer relationship, in its own hands.
Second-order effects
- Intel emerges as the quiet winner: its chips now sit underneath both Windows and Mac OS flagship hardware, raising its leverage with Microsoft over driver support and future silicon priorities for the Mac line.
- With Apple refusing to bundle Windows, responsibility for making it work on Mac hardware shifts to Microsoft — turning Microsoft's willingness to invest in Mac-compatible drivers into the real test of the pact.
Third-order effects
- If operating systems detach from processor architecture, platform competition migrates from the chip to the software experience — the layer where Apple, not Intel or Microsoft, sets the terms.
- A five-year formal pact between two longtime rivals points toward a market structured around negotiated cross-platform licenses rather than exclusive hardware-software lock-in.
The trend: Personal computing is moving toward hardware-agnostic operating systems, with Apple's 2006 Intel transition positioning a single machine to run rival platforms side by side.