Analyst: Students Will Flock to Macs if They Can Run Windows Apps

Needham & Co. analyst Charles Wolf has issued a research report in which he said that a survey of college students showed that the percentage of those interested in buying a Mac went from 24.7% to 44% if they could run Windows software on the new Intel-based computers. Macworld UKis Jonny Evans reported that, as a result, "Apple should go all out to remove the few remaining hurdles to running Windows apps on a Mac," Mr. Wolf wrote.

The analystis survey also showed that the percentage of Windows users who would definitely buy a Mac rose from 1.8% to 13.5% if it could run Windows software. Extrapolating the data to the home market, Mr. Wolf believes Apple could increase its market share to 9.2% if it enabled users to run Windows applications.

"There have been unconfirmed reports that Apple itself may be secretly working on virtualization software that would provide native support for Windows," Mr. Wolf said.