“Competition between virtualization software developers is about to kick into overdrive thanks to the ongoing development Parallels Desktop 4, which people familiar with the update say will significantly expand hardware and software support as well as deliver a redesigned interface,” Aidan Malley reports for AppleInsider.
“Those aware of the changes say the new release will be Parallels’ first to make good on promise made in early January that it would enable virtualization of Mac OS X Server on Macs already running the operating system, making use of a change in licensing terms with Leopard’s release late last year that permits more than one copy to run at the same time,” Malley reports.
“The move is just one of the steps Parallels is taking to keep up with and potentially outrun rival VMware, which unleashed ‘experimental’ support for virtualization of OS X Server earlier this week as part of its Fusion 2.0 virtualization product,” Malley reports. “The new Parallels 4.0 is also expected to add long-awaited support for assigning two CPU cores and up to 8GB of RAM to one virtual machine. Support for DirectX 9 and OpenGL 2 graphics is also present in early betas of the software.”
More details and screenshots in the full article here.
Nice. Except my usage of Parallels has dropped………because Mac programs can to all that and more.
I’ve used both Parallels and VMWare Fusion for a while, and I can definitively say that VMWare Fusion is the MUCH BETTER program than Parallels. And MUCH more stable too!
I’ve been using the recently released VMWare Fusion 2.0. It is a very nice free upgrade for 1.x owner. And yes, it also has the feature to run Mac OS X Server (Leopard) as a virtual machine, although it is labeled “experimental.” I’d like to try it, but I don’t have Server.
It’s interesting to mess around with Linux, and the best way to run Windows is in a virtual machine. I keep the disk image of the initial installation, so that I don’t have to reinstall. Just throw away the current disk image and start using a copy of the initial installation. My data is kept safe on the Mac OS X side.
Fusion must have just leapfrogged Parallels with their new release.
Parallels is pulling a Microsoft, talking about their vaporware while madly coding in an effort to catch up.
Parallels lost me when they made version changes and my VM could not be ported to the new version….a completely unacceptable situtation.
just my $0.02
the 4.0 release had better be a free update else i’ll certainly be looking to vmware fusion
seriously getting sick of waiting around for the linux drivers they keep promising for distro’s like ubuntu 8.04
I was thinking of getting Parallels but was talked out of it by the guys at the Apple store. Got VM Fusion and the upgrade to 2.0. Added a copy of Vista business (Wait, I didn’t want too, but needed to for work) and it is working extremely well.
I have a MacBook Pro with 4 gig of RAM and all is very snappy as you guys say. I keep getting windows asking me to restart Vista because of a software/security whatever!!! 64 of the bloody things in fact. Took a long time to download and install. The world of WINDOWS, ehh!
Parallels uses much less Mac OS X system resources. VMWare is bloatware.
Just my experience as of TODAY.
re:MacWhat?
mind elaborating your statement a little further? Sources maybe? Anyway, I finally went with Fusion because its support of multiple procs and less taxing of the machine ie resources.
“The new Parallels 4.0 is also expected to add long-awaited support for assigning two CPU cores”
Big deal. VMware Fusion has had this from the first beta version of 1.0. They have now added support for assigning up to FOUR CPU cores to a VMs. Of course, you’ll need a Mac Pro to take advantage of this feature (at least until Apple releases four-core machines other than the Pro).
I just love it that there is competition between the two, we are going to get awesome products no matter which one we chose. As for me I had some problems with Parallels 1.5 that I didn’t have with Fusion beta so I switched, haven’t tried Parallels since so I don’t know how well they compare, but either way both companies are doing amazing things to compete with each other!