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VP Philip Schiller said that Apple has no problem with anyone who may wish to install the Microsoft OS on a new iMac or MacBook Pro.

'That's fine with us,' he said. 'We don't mind. If there are people who love our hardware but are forced to put up with a Windows world, then that's OK.'

Microsoft was equally laissez-faire.

'Any

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new machines that are on the market that run Windows are great,' said Scott Erickson, director of product management and marketing for Microsoft's Mac Business Unit.

However what in theory may look easy may in fact prove impossible. As OS X software developer Unsanity explains in its blog, the new Macs use EFI (extensible firmware interfaces) to provide the interface between the operating system and the platform firmware instead of the standard PC BIOS.

'According to various documents from Microsoft, Windows for x86 machines does not support booting from EFI and won't until Windows Vista is released,' Unsanity notes.

What this also means is that it will not prove easy to port OS X to other hardware.

'As far as I know, no consumer PC ships with EFI support (why bother if Windows doesn't support it, right?). ...it'll be significantly harder to make OS X run on a stock PC without EFI,' continues Unsanity.