In a stunning move, BAPCo, the industry-standard Windows benchmarking consortium, announced that Apple Computer has joined up as a member. BAPCo is responsible for the SYSmark 2004SE and MobileMark benchmark suites we use at PC Magazine Labs for testing PCs. BAPCo also produces the webserver test WEBmark.
This is significant because it means that Apple has now committed to Windows-based performance testing, and it will influence industry-standard testing methodologies going forward, possibly including Mac OS X testing. We speculate that Apple will now develop Windows drivers for Intel Macs like the iMac, Mac mini and MacBook Pro with Intel Core Duo processors. You will probably still need to buy your own copy of Windows XP (or Vista), but this is exciting stuff.
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