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If you haven’t been hiding under a rock in a cave deep in the ocean, you’ve no doubt heard about Apple’s announcement of Boot Camp. For those of you who haven’t heard, Boot Camp is beta software from Apple that will allow you to boot Windows XP on a Mactel machine, like a MacBook Pro with a 2GHz Intel Core Duo or an 20-inch iMac with a 2GHz Intel Core Duo.

Robert Cringely believes Boot Camp is part of a larger plan from Apple to eventually get OS X running on white box PCs:

Microsoft and Apple are happy with each other for the moment, and rather than representing some Apple attack on Microsoft, Boot Camp just represents the state of their happy partnership. But this won’t last for long. It never does.

I predict that Apple will settle on 64-bit Intel processors ASAP (with FireWire 800 please), and at that time will announce a product similar to Boot Camp to allow OS X to run on bog-standard 32-bit PC hardware, turning the Boot Camp relationship on its head and trying to sell $99 copies of OS X to 100 million or so Windows owners.

I haven’t really been following Cringely too closely lately, but I think he’s on to something. Apple doesn’t care if you run Windows on a Mactel box, since Apple gets sales whether you run OS X or Windows. Why not go for the extra sales of OS X by letting users run it on white box PCs? I know, the Apple lovers out there will say that it’s obvious: Apple can’t control the hardware, and thus cannot control the experience of OS X on non-Mactel machines. While that might be true, a year ago Apple surprised many by announcing its partnership to Intel in the first place. Only time will tell what happens.

Update: Jacqui has a review of Boot Camp at Ars.