I believe the concern is around Windows x64 virtualization, not presumably Linux ARM virtualization.
Linux support is likely much more important to Mac users, likely by a large margin. Not necessarily Linux ARM virtualization, but Linux on x86 for web developers working with Docker or Linux VMs. Nobody likes playing guessing games about whether their local setup is close enough to their production environment.
I very much doubt that. Maybe for the HN crowd of web developers, but for normal users, embedded/desktop developers, basically everyone else, Windows is more important.
I hate to break it to you, but web developers outnumber embedded/ desktop users about 5 : 1 or more, particularly now that a huge chunk of desktop software has turned into glorified web apps.
Most users are barely capable of running one computer, let alone a virtual environment with a whole second OS on top. People who rely on Windows software generally run Windows.
And in fact probably far more corporate users run Parallels/Fusion than developers as there are far far more corporate dependencies on Windows and older Mac OSes if MacOS was always an integral part of your business pipeline than there are developers.
Bespoke business software, accounting software, control software and most importantly legacy software people are still running Macromedia software and even older things to be able to pull out and open legacy projects.
Sorry to break it to you but just like Linux for desktops - Linux virtualization for Mac is a rounding error.
You also seem to not understand how people actually use parallels or fusion they aren’t running or managing guests directly, those are packaged and presented as apps by their IT department.
Half if not more of the apps on our Corp App Store for MacOS are packaged like that.
When Jane from accounting opens her managed Mac and clicks on Sage Book 2005 or some 20 years old bespoke Oracle Forms application she doesn’t know it runs in a VM likely under Windows and quite possibly even Windows XP.
I think you view is really detached from reality since you seem to not know how most businesses run and managed their endpoints.
There is a whole industry of abstracting “having to manage their computer” not because most people aren’t capable of doing that but because they weren’t trained to do so and even if they were/are it’s a complete waste of time and resources for them to do so.
Nope. Worked corporate and the only Mac users with Parallels were devs, and only those who worked on cross platform software.
> Linux virtualization for Mac is a rounding error.
Also, nope. Docker and Kubernetes both run atop VMs and Docker adoption is quite large in web development.
> When Jane from accounting opens her managed Mac and clicks on Sage Book 2005 or some 20 years old bespoke Oracle Forms application she doesn’t know it runs in a VM likely under Windows and quite possibly even Windows XP.
I'm sure there are some businesses that run that way, but again, I just escaped corporate life. The folks who had to run Windows apps were just given Windows computers. I'm sure there are some companies where everyone has the option and they run virtualization as you suggest, but I haven't seen any evidence it's anywhere near as ubiquitous in corporations as you suggest.
People run Windows for the software library - not because they really like Windows.
I was under the impression (like many others apparently) that Windows 10 ARM64 wouldn't be very useful (since so few native apps are available), but being able to run 32-bit (x86) apps is huge:
Running 32-bit Applications https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/winprog64/run...
I think you were mostly pointing at Windows's ARM failure so far, which is fair -- a lot of applications simply won't run unless they make an ARM specific version or have a binary that happens to be compatible with the Windows built in x86 emulator