Microsoft is getting scared (and greedy)
I read an article last week about how Microsoft is positioning it's self to make more money from anyone that wants to purchase a copy of Vista to be used in a virtual environment, such as Parallels on a Mac.
As quoted from the licensing terms for Vista as published by Microsoft, users of their Vista Home Premium and Vista Home Basic Operating systems
may not use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system.
Now thats not the end of the story, Microsoft will let you use Vista on a virtual environlent if you pay up.
Instead, Microsoft will require that users purchase a Vista Business or Vista Ultimate license, which will retail for $299 and $399, respectively, in order to emulate the Windows environment.
This is a knee jerk reaction to a growing number of people that are buying Macs and running windows on them. The more people are exposed to Macs the more people seem to want to drop windows so Microsoft is throwing dollar signs in front of people who are considering buying a Mac and running Windows virtually in something like Parallels.
One way around this is with Apple's Boot Camp. With Boot Camp your not running Windows in a virtual environment so your not violating any licensing terms. The draw back is that you will still need to reboot to the OS you want to work in.
(i first read about this in an article on AppleInsider)
