Something that few expected seems to be becoming more and more of a possibility: the direct ability to run Windows programs in the Mac OS, without having to own or boot up the Windows OS.

This year, we saw two Windows-on-MacTel solutions arise: Apple’s own Boot Camp, which allows one to choose which OS to use upon startup (but not both at once), and Parallels, a virtualization solution that allows you to boot up Windows within the Mac OS, allowing both operating systems to run side-by-side, or at least Windows-under-Mac (Apple is even touting Parallels in its commercials instead of its own Boot Camp).

But now a third solution is becoming possible: the WINE solution. WINE started more then a decade ago as a way to run Windows applications within Linux and other Unix-related systems. One does not need Windows to open Windows software; with WINE, you can open the software directly within the host OS (images here). One company which deals in this software translation, CodeWeavers, has just announced that they will be bringing WINE to the Mac.

The down side of this is that WINE is not a universal translator–it only allows you to use a limited number of apps (and a limited number of versions of those apps) on the host system. These include MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access), Macromedia Flash 7, Dreamweaver MX, and Shockwave 8.5, Adobe Photoshop 6 & 7, Quicken, and a few other apps.

Obviously, this is not a cure-all. However, it is promising in terms of what can be done, even without assistance from Apple. And despite the limitations, it could be meaningful–I’ve heard some people say that a few key apps, like Access, have been preventing them from making the move.

But more to the point, if this much can be done independently from Apple, then if Apple worked to include Windows APIs and incorporated WINE, a lot more could be achieved.

In the meantime, virtualization like Parallels offers is quite satisfactory, though it does require one to buy the Windows OS, which adds a few hundred dollars to the purchase of a Mac. You still get a lot more for your money, but the bean counters still trying to defend a Windows-only approach will grab hold of that as a last defense.