Boot Camp: Windows on a Mac.

Apple today released a public beta of Boot Camp, a utility that allows owners of an Intel based Mac to easily partition their hard drive and install a retail boxed copy of Windows XP Home SP2 which will run natively - it's not an emulator.

This is a total surprise. For months now, since the release of the first Intel Mac, hackers have been trying to get Windows to boot on a Mac. Just three weeks ago, a pair of programmers won a $13,000 prize for being the first to achieve such a feat. And now, Apple have introduced their own, highly polished, version.

The beta will only be available for a limited time but it is expected that Boot Camp will become a permanent feature of the next major OS release - Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard when it is released later this year/early next year.

Hats off to Apple for this one; a big kick in the balls for Microsoft's dominance!