Filed under: Software, Universal Binary
VMware Fusion officially available today
There are two kinds of virtualization products for the Mac: first, the kind that develop fast, release quick, and damn the torpedoes; second, the kind that bake in the goodness and hold off on a release until everything meets the exacting standards of an enterprise software vendor. Today we get to see the final result of the second approach, as VMware Fusion is officially shipping after an extensive beta release. (Still love ya, Parallels, don't ever change.)Fusion is available for $60 (after a $20 rebate) and offers all the XP-running, virtual-appliance-library downloading, window integrating, 3D emulating features you'd expect. I'm planning to do a little bake-off between the agile rookie and the wily veteran, now that everyone's on a fully released & supported plateau, to see which of the two meets my needs best.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Martin said 11:32AM on 8-06-2007
I was hoping that it would work with my PowerBook G4. I guess I'm stuck with MS Virtual PC for Mac (at least until I get a MacBook).
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Michael Rose said 11:41AM on 8-06-2007
Uh, yeah, sorry about that Martin -- VMware does require an Intel-based Mac.
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andy said 12:02PM on 8-06-2007
I'm surprised there's still no clone mechanism, surely this is a key feature? I like Parallels, but VMware has the potential to just edge them out with the cross functionality to their other corporate line. Bit cheeky making us pay for it when the windows equivilent is free too!
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Jonas said 10:11AM on 8-28-2007
It would be great with a comparison between Parallels and VMware Fusion!
Like how they perform in various programs, OS, and 3D games.
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Eli Hodapp said 11:57AM on 8-06-2007
I'm stuck with an ancient version of Parallels as I did the pre-order when it was still in beta which makes me ineligible for upgrades to their newest versions which support 3D graphics for gaming. Has anyone seen a good comparison review between Parallels and VMWare? I'm going to buy one or the other, I just can't decide which. My main use for either of them would be running Windows games without rebooting in to Boot Camp.
Thoughts?
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andy said 12:16PM on 8-06-2007
Eli Hodapp - I've not seen any performance comparisons, but it sounds like something MacWorld may do now that the official VMware product is out. My gut feel would be that Parallels is your best bet, it it likely to me more activly pushed in this area. VMware's key market is really enterprise, but hey it's not my $80!
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Joshua Ochs said 12:33PM on 8-06-2007
If you want a comparison, feel free to read the reviews of both products on MacUpdate.
In a nutshell, Parallels 2.5 was decent, but 3.0 has had MAJOR stability problems and the company has been unable to provide adequate support (looks like they grew way too fast). VMWare, meanwhile, has been excellent since beta 3, and improved constantly. Its underlying architecture is generally accepted to be more advanced (supporting multiple processors, full USB 2.0, and ACPI), and its user interface was designed ground up for the Mac - no porting there. At the same time, since it shares the underlying VMWare virtualization engine, you can download virtual machines freely from its web site (usually Linux, since distributing Windows would be illegal).
Performance isn't really an issue for virtualization - it's not emulating things, so it's really down to how good its OS tools are (how it integrates with the host system) and these days, 3D support. Parallels only supports Windows; VMWare supports Windows and Linux with full integration tools. I can't personally comment on 3D support, as I don't use it for that.
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Gandhi said 12:15PM on 8-06-2007
What about people who pre-ordered and downloaded RC1? Any updates for us? Do we have to r-edownload or is there a update package available for download?
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Michael Rose said 12:15PM on 8-06-2007
#5 -- Andy, who says there's no clone mechanism?
http://www.vmware.com/download/converter/download.html
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Karl Childers said 12:18PM on 8-06-2007
How about including Q in your comparison?
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Jon said 12:50PM on 8-06-2007
From what I can tell, VMWare can support more than the 1500MB of memory that Parallels restricts to. It can also virtualize more than one processor which would be useful for performance-based applications.
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Darren said 1:12PM on 8-06-2007
VMWare has been providing virtualization for corporate users since 1999 and is still the defaco standard for virtualization on Windows and Linux, despite competing head-to-head with Microsoft's own virtualization software, into which Microsoft has devoted a large amount of resources (Microsoft doesn't want people running other OSs)
It isn't surprising to anyone familiar VMWare that Parallels wouldn't compare.
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clmensch said 1:31PM on 8-06-2007
I upgraded to Parallels 3 for the express purpose of using my Macbook Pro's Boot Camp XP partition as a VM. After I installed the upgrade, it totally hosed my partition. After having to reformat and reinstall windows, it would boot once but then would corrupt its own registry entry, preventing any further booting in Parallels. (Boot Camp still worked.) Support personnel were not able to suggest a fix other than to manually delete the registry entry each time it happened from within Boot Camp...which obviously wasn't a good solution. I then installed the VMWare Fusion beta, and it's been rock-solid ever since. Their "Unity" mode works better than Parallels' "Coherence" mode, too. I purchased Fusion and I'm not looking back...
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Otto said 1:33PM on 8-06-2007
can you use boot camp with vmware?
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Gregoire said 1:44PM on 8-06-2007
Joshua, people might think from your comment that Parallels only runs windows but it supports Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Sun Solaris, OS/2 Warp and MS DOS nowadays... On top of that I haven't found any problems running USB 2.0 devices with it.
I think at this moment both are extremely close concerning features and I'm very interested in seeing the performance charts. Hope they're available soon!
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Jim Pietrangelo said 1:45PM on 8-06-2007
Funny how I never read anything good or bad about a product called VirtualBox. I've got an Intel iMac 2Ghz Core Duo Processor and 1GB RAM. I keep a lot of apps open all the time and still have no problems running Windows in a separate window. This lets me view websites I'm designing in Safari, Firefox, and Windows IE 6 and 7 all at the same time.
I tried both Parallels and VMWare Fusion. They both slowed me system to a crawl. VirtualBox slows it too... of course... but not as much.
Best of all, VirtualBox is free. Those interested can find it at virtualbox.org
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Christi said 2:12PM on 8-06-2007
@Otto:
Yes, I've got the beta running Windows off Bootcamp just fine.
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Mark S said 6:12PM on 8-06-2007
...and it's good for running Linux and Solaris!
Haven't tried Windows on it and I don't have much need. I have CrossOver for that.
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Gandhi said 8:06PM on 8-06-2007
Okay, the instructions are in the FAQs on how to upgrade from RC1 to retail version. Uninstall old one using uninstall package file and install the new one.
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Fourbin said 12:30PM on 8-11-2007
How is VMWare's support? I have Parallels 3.0 and had a few problems in the beginning and the free e-mail support is a joke. They never wrote me back and it's been 3 weeks. The forums are also not very helpful at all.
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