Apple just released the beta software called Boot Camp that allows users to run a dual-boot Windows XP and Mac OSX machine. You can read more from Robert Scoble’s web-site, scobleizer: Run XP on a Mac? Cool!. At first I thought that it was a belated April Fools joke, but I don’t think so anymore.

Considering that this had just been done by hackers it’s pretty impressive that Apple has gone ahead and made it an available option for people wanting to do this. It created an interesting conversation in our office with how this will effect the buying habits of corporations and individuals.

We agreed that it has the possibility of effecting individuals buying habits a lot more than corporations as you would still need to purchase a Windows XP licence. For a home computer this now makes the Mac Mini or even the iMac quite appealing, even to a PC geek like myself.

Ed Bott has some very good comentary on it that you can read in his article Ed Bott: Dual-boot, no; virtualization, yes. You can also check out Apples official press release on their web-site, Apple Introduces Boot Camp.