Who will convert to VMware Fusion when it is released?
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Mar 11, 2007, 07:47 AM
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wesley Senior Member Join: Apr 2006 Posts: 398 |
Couldn't you have made this as a poll thread? :) Anyways, the current version finally nailed most of the outstanding points I needed, so I'll be sitting on the Parallels camp even if Fusion goes official release before Parallels gets 3D support (the last point I'm waiting for). ADDENDUM: Looks like you posted this thread based on the 'lackluster customer support' thread thing. To make this as an interesting poll, the options should include the reasons for jumping boat. If Parallels didn't promise 3D support, I would have considered jumping ship for the feature set aspect. __________________ Core 2 Duo iMac 2.8GHz | 4GB RAM | 500GB HDD Mac OS X 10.5.4 | VM inside PW: Windows XP SP3 |
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Mar 11, 2007, 10:13 AM
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Hugh Watkins Senior Member Join: Jul 2006 Posts: 976 |
if it ain't broken don't fix it use the time for your work Hugh W __________________ http://snaps4.blogspot.com/ photographs and walks in Copenhagen GENEALOGE http://hughw36.blogspot.com/ MAIN BLOG |
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Mar 11, 2007, 10:33 AM
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dlundh Junior Member Join: Jan 2007 Posts: 15 |
I'm moving on. My guess is that in a years time this forum will be as ghostly as SVISTAs. http://www.serenityvirtual.com/forums/ Yes, same owners, same technology, same dump porduct on unsuspecting market and never be heard from again strategy. I'm just amazed that the Mac mags are taking these racketeers seriously. __________________ http://macventures.blogspot.com/ |
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Mar 11, 2007, 10:43 AM
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itsdapead Senior Member Join: Sep 2006 Posts: 182 |
Wait and see ...how the features compare when (a) VMWare is on sale and (b) Parallels wants paying for the next update. Disclaimer: I haven't tried Fusion - but I've used VMWare Workstation on PC and its an excellent product. Things to consider: 1. Office/productivity/legacy apps Performance of Parallels is more than good enough for this, while "Coherence" and Parallels' other efforts to integrate Windows with the Mac desktop are a killer feature - saving screen real-estate and letting me use two screens. Fusion would have to beat those. I don't see the multi-CPU support of VMWare being a killer here - these are not CPU-intensive apps and Parallels itself is taking some advantage of multi cores. 2. Games, 3D and other demanding apps If I want to run these then it takes 2 minutes to re-boot into native Windows and have a machine firing on all cylinders. Virtualisation will never deliver the same performance as bare metal - and the reports of 3D running under Fusion seem to be restricted to fairly old games. 3. Linux and other non-Microsoft operating systems Parallels are clearly concentrating on the big Windows market and their Linux support is not stellar, whereas it sounds like Fusion has inherited the Linux tools from VMWare's PC product line. The lack of Linux tools make Parallels pretty hopeless for running a Linux desktop, and even for a server install you have to faff around setting up file sharing and time syncing. Having said that, there are work-arounds for most of that - including using the OSX X11 server to run the desktop to get mouse integration. Plus, while I've made extensive use of virtual linux "development" servers for web apps etc. under Windows, I'm finding them less essential under the Unix-based OSX. However, I could almost see myself using Parallels to run Windows and Fusion to run Linux. 4. Support This is a "wait and see" issue - VMWare are used to supporting sysadmins and developers (the dominant markets for virtualisation on PC) and they've been much more conservative about how widely they distributed the beta. Lets see how they cope when hoards of non-techie Mac users try installing Windows and hooking it up to their mobile phone or running obscure bits of software. There have been a lot of whinges here about Parallels support - but I'm really glad that its not my job. 5. Price Everybody is assuming that Fusion will be priced competitively with Parallels (i.e. cheap and cheerful). On PC, the basic VMWare Server and VMWare Player are free, and they make their money by charging serious dosh for their developer and enterprise products. I don't see that working in the Mac market (but who knows). The real killer would be if VMWare they did a deal with Microsoft and produced a Virtual PC like bundle including an OEM Windows license. Given that they've recently been slagging each other off in public, that seems unlikely. 6. Leopard And then, the rumours of some sort of better-than-bootcamp Windows integration in Leopard will be confirmed one way or another Real Soon Now. Personally, I doubt it (beyond the pretty well established release version of Bootcamp) - Apple can't be seen to embrace Windows too warmly. |
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Mar 11, 2007, 02:25 PM
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dlundh Junior Member Join: Jan 2007 Posts: 15 |
"There have been a lot of whinges here about Parallels support - but I'm really glad that its not my job." Yes, it must be really exhausting to pass the time doing nothing all day. __________________ http://macventures.blogspot.com/ |
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Mar 11, 2007, 02:38 PM
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drval Senior Member Join: Dec 2006 Posts: 490 |
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Of course, I'm looking for 3D support more USB support and a few other features, esp if I would ever use it as a solution for my deployed software but... I think the real issues concern how much of an "end user" versus Enterprise customer you are, esp as that links into whether Windows or some other OS is you preferred Guest. __________________ The Power of NeuroCARE www.zengar.com |
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Mar 11, 2007, 03:19 PM
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Sharkus Member Join: Apr 2006 Posts: 84 |
I've used PDM since the first beta and am impressed with it. I've not had any real issues with it, and those I have experienced have been resolved with either help from others on here, or by an update in the product. Part of my job requires me to test our software against different server platforms, most of them non-macintosh, and this is normally handled by my trusty six year old PC which is configured to run XP Pro, 2000 Server, 2003 Server, Netware 6.5, SLES 9 and SLES 10. It's not the fastest machine in the world but it does work. The Intel iMac I have is probably at least four times quicker than this little ol box, and thus when virtualization solutions for the Intel machines came along (I originally tried "Q") I was happy that I could probably have VM's running most if not all the server software. The only platform that PDM does not currently handle is Netware. This is something that the beta of VMWare Fusion does handle, albeit slowly, mostly due to it being beta and running in debug mode. At present the only reason I'd switch to VMWare is for the Netware support, but to be frank, I hardly use my existing Netware setup, so firing up the PC to use it isn't much of a hassle, and certainly not enough to warrant me switching a VM solution just to allow support for that one platform. VMWare is taking a long time to come to market, but people will trust them more than Parallels as they are an established name, but it does depend on the price point of their product and, obviously the feature range. So Fusion will allow 3D, big deal. As said above by someone else, even if PDM did handle 3D, the performance still would not be the same as running bootcamp, and considering you can use your BC partition as your VM's virtual drive, I don't see why you would not use both and simply reboot into XP via BC when you need the 3D side of things. Do people really need the full on 3D performance and the ability to run the Mac OS at the same time? I stayed away from BC for some time as I'd partitioned my machine into three and could not use it, but I took the plunge and stripped it back to a single partition, installed bootcamp and have Parallels running as well. If I need to run access, I fire up Parallels and do it that way. If I want to play a game, I reboot into XP, takes all of 2 minutes, if that. I would like to see Netware support in Parallels and I was told it may be present in a forthcoming release, which I'd guess would be the next major and thus non-free release, so we'll wait and see. I think the only thing that might sway me would be the ability to run Mac OS X Server from within a VM solution on a Mac. It would, again, reduce the number of machines I need to maintain. I will certainly have a look at Fusion when it's released, but I doubt I'd switch. |
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Mar 13, 2007, 03:19 PM
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Linh My Junior Member Join: Jan 2007 Posts: 10 |
Parallels may have killed my Mac Quote:
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Mar 14, 2007, 05:35 PM
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Linh My Junior Member Join: Jan 2007 Posts: 10 |
OSX 10.4.9 helped Quote:
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Mar 16, 2007, 02:19 AM
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barnys Junior Member Join: Dec 2006 Posts: 22 |
I can't wait... my experience trying to get support at Parallels have been terrible to put it in simple words. On the other hand VMware gives me one day answers with high accuracy levels. I cannot even start thinking of suggesting Parallels in my deployments, until they put their act together and better their technical support. |
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Mar 16, 2007, 10:08 PM
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drscience Member Join: Dec 2006 Posts: 30 |
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One can only imagine that not only does the Parallels team care little about customer experience and satisfaction, but they are indifferent to their future as a company. |
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Mar 16, 2007, 10:36 PM
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drval Senior Member Join: Dec 2006 Posts: 490 |
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It is quite simply amazing that you make such leaps of logic. I have had no problem getting Tech Support from Paralllels and I've had no problems with the software. There are additional features that I'd love to see included but it does solve the problems that I needed to be solved in order to use it as my primary development platform. Your local results may vary -- obviously -- and I can understand that you and others might be frustrate. But, you know, I'm really tired of hearing about how you or others are going to "jump ship" to VMWare or whatever. If you're going to do that, please do so and ASAP. Otherwise, simply state your content in a simple way, without drama. __________________ The Power of NeuroCARE www.zengar.com |
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Mar 16, 2007, 11:07 PM
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dkp Senior Member Join: May 2006 Posts: 1,415 |
Val - it doesn't help to know you get support when others don't. Useful would be to know why. There are folks who have paid for telephone support and never got a return call. I think you would agree that's just not acceptable, with or without the drama. |
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Mar 16, 2007, 11:33 PM
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drval Senior Member Join: Dec 2006 Posts: 490 |
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I also know that I've asked for people who've said they've had support problems to send their emails to me and that I would then forward them to beta@parallels.com to see what heppened. Now the interesting thing about that was that, despite my making that offer, and despite some people posting about their problems, I never actually received any such forwards. Of course there are a lot of reasons for that to happen and we're all left wondering about that and about the reasons for Parallels acting in some of the ways that it has. __________________ The Power of NeuroCARE www.zengar.com |
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Mar 16, 2007, 11:42 PM
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drscience Member Join: Dec 2006 Posts: 30 |
Even casual perusal of this board reveals large numbers of very frustrated users, many of whom have reported the same bugs over and over again, yet others who have paid for but never received support, others of whom have had the OSX installation trashed, etc. etc. etc. Indeed, so large is the number of responses of this kind that one can only conclude that your experience is, logically speaking, the exception rather than the rule. Failure to provide accessible support to paying customers is disrespectful to those customers. Failure to provide telephone support to those who specifically pay for it borders on the fraudulent. When combined with the confusing pattern of releases, including gold releases with serious bugs, this bespeaks disregard not only for the customer, but for the viability of the company, as many others have pointed out directly or indirectly. This isn't drama, it's common sense. By constrast, drama is stating that if one observes and comments on Parallels' disrespectful and potentially self-destructive behavior, and recognizes that this inclines one (and any number of others) to consider a competing product, one should just say so and leave. But Val, Parallels isn't a religion, it isn't a form of patriotism. It isn't even a community. It's just a piece of software. And as far as I know, it isn't yours. The relevent term of art is ego-syntonic. As a psychologist, Val surely knows what this means. He should remember Sulpicius' letter to Cicero: "...neque imitari malos medicos, qui in alienis morbis profitentur tenere se medicinae scientiam, ipsi se curare non possunt." (NB: Some scholars think this is a precursor to Luke 4:23). |
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Mar 17, 2007, 10:55 PM
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plarusa Member Join: Apr 2006 Posts: 33 |
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Frankly, I never understood the Parallels motivation for spending engineering resources on eye candy features like Coherence, while neglecting the USB stack which is a required feature (USB is the only way to add custom hardware to a VM). To put it simply, I want a product with a bulletproof implementation of the basic functionality. I use VMWare because their products meet this requirement. |
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Mar 17, 2007, 11:02 PM
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drval Senior Member Join: Dec 2006 Posts: 490 |
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__________________ The Power of NeuroCARE www.zengar.com |
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