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Tue, 08 Aug 2006 WWDC: Microsoft ends Virtual PC for Mac

Jonny Evans

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Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit (Mac BU) has said it will not develop a new version of its PC emulation software for Mac, Virtual PC.

"Mac BU has made the decision not to move forward with a Universal version of Virtual PC at this time; however, current Virtual PC customers will continue to receive product support," a Microsoft spokesperson said.

"Developing a high-quality virtualisation solution, such as Virtual PC, for the Intel-based Mac is similar to creating a version 1.0 release, due to how closely the product integrates with Mac hardware," they added.

Mac users aren't left in the cold by this, alternative virtualisation solutions exist, including Boot Camp, Parallels and VMWare. The company will also discontinue Mac support for the Visual Basic scripting language.

The company also revealed that it's working hard to deliver a new version of Office for the Intel-powered Mac platform.

"Tens of millions of lines of code have been 100 per cent transitioned to Xcode on the road to a Universal version of Office for Mac. The Mac BU also will provide free, downloadable converters to allow users of current versions of Office for Mac to read the new Microsoft Office Open XML formats following the availability of Office for Windows," the company said.

The company also promises a new version (6) of Messenger for Mac that it says will ship later this year. "It will deliver a number of new, exciting features including federation for Messenger for Mac personal users with Yahoo! Messenger customers," the company explained.

The Mac BU is also developing a new, free, Universal version of the Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) Client for Mac that allows Mac users to access Windows-based computers on their network. 

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