US firm cashes in on demand

Apple's launch of Boot Camp earlier this month has prompted a surge of public interest in Windows on the Intel Mac.

A US-based firm is now selling MacBooks with dual-booting Windows and Mac OS X pre-installed.

ExperCom is offering a MacBook Pro 15.4in 1.83GHz 512M/80G/128MB VRAM/Super/BootCamp for $2,029. The unit comes with Windows XP pre-loaded.

"We will pre-load your MacBook with a 20GB Fat32 partition with Windows XP Pro with Service Pack 2," the company said. "If you would like a different size on the partition, give us a call."

Buyers also get a licensed copy of Windows XP on CD which can be reinstalled if necessary.

ExperCom does not support Windows XP, and neither does Apple. "We will install it for you, but cannot help answer Windows questions," the firm said.

The company added that, as Boot Camp is public beta software, it does "not support all the features of a MacBook Pro under Windows XP".

ExperCom also reminded users that the public beta of Boot Camp will expire when Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard arrives, or September 2007, whichever comes first. Users will need to purchase Leopard for continued support.