Being a native application, Docker containers have always been dead easy to get up and running on Linux systems. But that wasn’t the case for Windows and OS X users, until today.

Now, Docker Inc. is making things easier for users of those platforms with the beta release of Docker for Windows and Docker for Mac.

Docker says the new apps, meant for developers who wish to build, assemble and ship applications on Windows or Mac, are “the simplest way to use Docker on your laptop”.

There’s some truth in that because using Docker on Windows and Mac has always been a pretty complicated affair. On Windows, developers have to first install the VirtualBox application and then jump through several other hoops to get a container up and running. With the new app it’s much easier, as the Docker engine runs in a Hyper-V virtual machine on Windows. Meanwhile, on Mac, the Docker engine runs in an Alpine Linux distro atop of a xhyve virtual machine.

On Windows, the native Windows interface and auto-update capability that comes with the new app will allow for less dependency hell and deeper integration, Docker’s Patrick Chanezon, formerly a Director of Enterprise Evangelism at Microsoft, said. Docker will also be faster and more reliable, he insisted.

“Docker for Mac and Docker for Windows are at different stages of development, although they do share a significant code base,” Chanezon wrote on the Docker blog. “Docker for Windows will initially be rolled out to users at a slower pace but will eventually offer all the same functionality as Docker for Mac. Docker for Windows currently only ships on Windows 10 editions that support Hyper-V.”

The Docker engine is setting the enterprise on fire with its ability to automate application deployment. It uses containers instead of virtual machines, enabling numerous applications to run simultaneously on the same server. As such, Docker is a central part of Microsoft’s new microservices strategy.

To that end, Microsoft has lent its considerable weight behind the container movement, first making it possible to run Docker apps on Linux on Microsoft Azure, and later partnering with Docker to add support for containers on Windows Server. Microsoft has also created its own Windows-native containers, based on Docker, Apache Mesos and parts of Mesosphere Inc.’s Datacenter Operating System (DCOS).

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