Apple repeals the "Switcher Tax"

Well, it sure would've been a heck of a lot cooler if they'd announced it on their 30th Birthday this past Saturday - but I suppose everyone would've thought it was an April Fool's joke. Anyway, yesterday Apple boldly unveiled Boot Camp - which allows Intel Macs to dual boot Windows XP alongside Mac OS X from the same hard drive. And then today, Parallels announced Workstation - which allows Intel Macs to run Windows (or Linux) at the same time as Mac OS X at near-native performance, without rebooting. (More info at PC World and eWeek.)

This is A Big Deal, because it means that Apple has now effectively repealed the "Switcher Tax", a.k.a. the number one "barrier to entry" for the Mac platform. As I observed almost a year ago, in order to switch to a Mac, PC owners have not only had to throw out all their existing PC software (often a sizable investment) - they've then had to buy all that software all over again for the Mac [versions], which just adds insult to injury. But not anymore. Now PC users can not only still use their existing peripherals (monitors, mice, keyboards, etc.) - they can also still use all the software they've already invested in.

In other words, Apple is now inviting PC users to have their cake and eat it too.

(Meanwhile, Apple has nearly $9 billion in cash reserves, and recently formed their own asset-management firm.)