Wow this is unbelievable! Apple has officially released a public beta of Boot Camp which allows anyone to take a Windows XP CD and install it on a Intel Mac complete with dual-boot! I haven’t seen this discussed anywhere today as yet, but in just a short while this is going to be huge. Ars Emporium and Macintouch seem to be the first to have this story. So this is why Apple joined that Windows benchmarking group a while ago. The next version of OSX (Leopard) will also include technology to let you run XP on a Intel Mac. I think Leopard will also include some virtualization technology so you won’t have to reboot your Mac just to use Windows.
From the Boot Camp page:

Boot Camp lets you install Windows XP without moving your Mac data, though you will need to bring your own copy to the table, as Apple Computer does not sell or support Microsoft Windows. Boot Camp will burn a CD of all the required drivers for Windows so you don’t have to scrounge around the Internet looking for them.

Well … I never thought I would see this day. Everyone has known that Apple wouldn’t officially support Windows on Macs and they still won’t offer support for this but it was always assumed that people would have to use hacks to get Windows to run on a Mac. With Boot Camp people will no longer have to rely on hacks and it will also burn you a CD of the required drivers for your XP system. Very very cool indeed.