Guess What? The Mac’s New Best Friend Is Windows.

Forget the so-called iPod “halo effect” as the primary cause for an increase in Mac sales the past year or so.

The Mac’s new best friends are Windows Vista and XP. Apple’s switch to Intel chips and the ability to run Windows reduces the fear factor for switchers from Windows.

I read Turley Muller’s perspective in SeekingAlpha on the Mac’s Windows capability and agree with the implied premise. The Mac’s increase in sales is as much about Windows as it is the “iPod” halo effect.

Despite a number of factual gaffs, Muller is basically saying that Apple investors have been overlooking the Mac’s ability to run Windows, which may be a strong cause for the Mac’s growing sales and market share. With all the media focus on the iPod and iPhone as drivers for growth and profits, the Mac isn’t being given its due.

The factual gaffs are minor, and not material to the cause.

Except for the fact that it hasn’t been more than two decades of Windows dominance since Windows didn’t really become mainstream until about 1992, a mere 15 years ago, and didn’t topple the Mac from prominence until Windows ‘95. After that, it was all downhill for the Mac until OS X began to take root.

Why, until now, have Windows users not switched to the Mac? The answers are more obvious than ever. Despite a five year track record of stability, security, dependability, and a rapidly growing list of quality applications, PC buyers gave little consideration to the Mac as a choice—until now.

In recent years, as development of Windows Vista slowed to a crawl, and security issue plagued the crash-prone XP, Mac OS X, and by default, the Mac as a hardware platform, continued to improve and garner praise from the media. The Mac’s reputation was changing, but sales to the coveted PC switchers was slow to arrive. Why?

Change is hard. Even the 40-million Windows iPod customers didn’t line up in droves to buy Macs; even the iMac that looked like a big iPod. For all its faults, Windows XP was a known entity and presented the most uncomfortable of comfort zones for hundreds of millions of people. Thoughts of the Mac were nominal, fleeting, and more of a dream than a call to action.

When it comes to a technical gadget, necessary or not, most people want to buy what most people already have, and that would be was a PC running Windows, even if many believed or could easily be persuaded that a Mac was better in many respects.

Old myths die hard. The Mac’s reputation was in graphics; not a need to be fulfilled by most PC buyers. The Mac was more expensive; why spend the money when a new PC was so cheap? The Mac didn’t have as much software available; even though most PC buyers own only a handful of basic applications, many of which are cross platform anyway. The Mac would require learning something different.

All those elements combined to keep the Mac from growing in sales and market share at a time when hardware prices were comparable and Mac OS X was, in many ways, vastly superior to Windows XP. What sales increases the Mac experienced came from qualified, considered buyers coming back to the Mac, the geeky community, and a few brave souls switching because they loved their iPods so the Mac must be good, too.

Muller is saying, in oh so many words, that investors in AAPL would do well to consider what is happening and it’s not just iPods and iPhones. The Mac is about to make some strong gains in market share and that will help propel Apple’s revenue and profit growth for years to come. Buy why? What’s the catalyst?

Windows XP and Windows Vista. The Mac’s new best friends. Add to that Boot Camp, which lets new Intel Macs run Windows as well or better than average PCs, and the stage is set for the Mac to have a dramatic run.

Windows XP’s poor security and stability became well known and publicized over the past five years. Windows Vista was delayed, and delayed again, and display little added benefit for PC buyers with pent up demand to buy something new, and a strong desire to buy something better than the crap they put up with for years.

With nothing but extra expense or continued trouble coming from PCs with Windows, buyers began to look at other choices. What other choices? Linux is a non-choice, still too geeky for mainstream buyers. That left the Mac and even PC users knew of the Mac’s superiority—improved security, higher dependability, features not available on Windows. And, since early 2006, the Mac runs Windows, a risky move which is paying off handsomely for Apple.

If the Mac also runs Windows (and anything else, like Linux), and is priced competitively, and is secure and dependable and just more fun to use, buyers began to take notice. Then they began to buy, even after Windows Vista crawled out on the streets to a slew of bad reviews. The Mac is back.

From little acorns, big trees grow. If the Mac’s market share vs. Windows PCs was a mere 3-percent to 4-percent in the US just a few years ago, it’s now 6 to 7-percent. That’s rapid growth. Even better is the fact that Apple stays completely out of the sub $1,000 PC segment (with the exception of limited sales by the Mac mini) which accounts for half of all PCs sold. That means Apple’s market share in the more lucrative, more profitable above $1,000 segment is closer to 13-percent in the US; no longer insignificant. Some analysts put Mac notebook market share to consumers at 20-percent.

The explosion in market share and sales is yet to come. OS X Leopard is on the horizon and puts Tiger to shame which put to shame Windows Vista. The stage is set. Thanks to Boot Camp and Windows massive problems, the most significant obstacle to switching from a PC to a Mac has been removed. 10-percent market share in the US may be achieved by next year, but the rapid growth will continue, thanks to the Mac’s new best friends, Windows XP and Windows Vista.