Microsoft Shows Interest in Intel VPC (Score 1)

While dual-booting is probably needed for full-screen games there still is a need to run other Windows apps on a Mac where VPC would be adequate if it ran fast. It should do so once the need to emulate a Power PC instruction set is eliminated. Thus, I've been looking to see any indication from Microsoft that they plan to do this. I found it. http://www.microsoft.com/mac/default.aspx?pid=macI ntelQA

Q. What does the announcement about Intel-based Macs mean for Virtual PC for Mac?

A. Virtual PC for Mac Version 7 is still the best emulation solution for users who have PowerPC-based Macs, but it does not run on Intel-based Macs. We are working with Apple to determine the feasibility of developing Virtual PC for Mac for Intel-based Macs. Virtual PC for Mac is highly dependent on the operating system and hardware and will require additional development to run on Intel-based Macs.

No date promised but at least they aren't against it. In fact, it sounds like me when my manager asks me for a schedule before I have fully scoped the project. My gut tells me this should be easy but Microsoft is hedging their bets just in case it is not. The OS integration portion is already solved and they enhance by deleting the processor emulation layer. Hopefully they did their VPC development in gcc (ideally 4.0 but even 3.x would be OK) rather than with Microsoft compilers as this provides for a faster port. My experience with porting between OSes (in my case Solaris and Linux) is that changing compilers is a more difficult task than retargetting architectures.