#FF00AA

Apple’s Get a Mac page demonstrates Parallels Desktop rather than Boot Camp [via]. It’s weird but makes sense without resorting to wild speculation: I think Apple may simply not want to emphasize the possibility of quitting OS X to Windows, because new users could end up spending all their time in Windows, never using OS X enough to find out why it’s better, end telling everyone they regret buying a $1,500 iMac when a $500 Dell would have worked just as well.

It makes sense, yes, but in the real world it’s stupid: the real reason why home users (the campaign’s direct target) need Windows isn’t some proprietary software; it’s games. And games need Boot Camp, not Parallels Desktop.

Note that Apple now wanting you to boot to Windows too much is also the reason why they are very likely to license Parallels Desktop into OS X 10.5 or come out with their own solution, so the speculation isn’t far off — not to mention that they’re publicizing virtualization now, which would make it pretty hard to make a big deal of 10.5’s dual-boot capabilities. It’s just that the mention of Parallels Desktop on Apple’s pages doesn’t actually give out any hint as to which of the two alternatives they’re more likely to use. (I do think licensing Parallels is what makes most sense — because developing a whole virtualization solution has to be a pretty big task and I’d rather they allocated their resources to something else — but Apple strategy and common sense don’t always go hand in hand.)

Also note that they’re just addressing my point that advertising Boot Camp while still in beta wouldn’t be quite honest.