VMWare Beta for OS X registration available

Discussion in 'Parallels Desktop for Mac' started by Cereal, Aug 7, 2006.

  1. Cereal

    Cereal Junior Member

    Messages:
    19
    www.vmware.com


    Looks like its going to be a fun week with WWDC.

    Cheers!
    David
     
  2. evamedia

    evamedia Bit poster

    Messages:
    5
  3. Unshra

    Unshra Bit poster

    Messages:
    2
    Aye that as one of the first things I noticed, but it makes sense seeing they want to check out the competition.

    However the first thing that caught my eye was the interface, personally the main reason I like VMWare of Parallels is the ability to have all my sessions in one window and being able to tab to each one. It looks like the mac version will not have feature but I hope I am mistaken and it will have a similar interface as the Windows counterpart other wise I see no reason to leave Parallels as I have already recreated all of my images that I had for VMWare on Parallels.


    -Unshra
     
  4. dhjdhj

    dhjdhj Hunter

    Messages:
    220
    Well, for me, the interesting question is the actual feature list - the vmware verison is not available yet and a lot will depend on whether they can provide the features that Parallels won't have when VMWare version is actually released.

    There's an old rule of thumb for determining the success of a product. You have to be either

    First,
    Cheapest,
    Best.

    Right now, Parallels has all three since there's nothing else out there (Virtual PC doesn't count). When VMWare version comes out, Parallels will still have been first, they'll probably still be cheaper and "Best" will be interesting.


    D
     
  5. Cereal

    Cereal Junior Member

    Messages:
    19
  6. ccparallels

    ccparallels Member

    Messages:
    94
    Why do they have something so uninteresting as calendar, and an empty on at that, though I realize that is the extent of PC usage for some people.
     
  7. Cereal

    Cereal Junior Member

    Messages:
    19
    I wonder if VMWare will support the VT instruction set like Parallels? Does anyone know?
     
  8. constant

    constant Forum Maven

    Messages:
    1,010
    .
    That could quite possibly be a question for another forum.
    .
     
  9. KaiserX

    KaiserX Junior Member

    Messages:
    11
  10. >>> Message has been deleted by the user <<<
     
  11. Cereal

    Cereal Junior Member

    Messages:
    19
    Dude,

    Chill. I've been a customer of Parallels since beta 3 and it's a great product. There's been a lot of discussions on these boards about what VMWare may bring to the table. I'm only passing on what I felt was relevent.
     
  12. n9yty

    n9yty Member

    Messages:
    54
    Considering Microsoft didn't write any of VPC, I can see why they tuck their tails and run. They basically scalped what Connectix had done, tweaked it slightly (it took forever for them to even make that codebase work on the G5) only to get the intellectual property rights for their windows based virtualization. They never cared about the Mac side despite the lip service they gave. Oh well. Thankfully Parallels DOES seem to care, even if their support is apparently so overtaxed they can't make appearances here in the forums any longer. Hopefully VMWare will care too.
     
  13. MatthewR

    MatthewR Member

    Messages:
    45
    I welcome VMWare to the table. Hopefully they will bring a lot of the features Parallels has simply ignored. If nothing else, I expect the competition to knock Parallels off their laurels.

    Microsoft's VirtualPC announcement is expected. When they mean it'd be like doing it from scratch, they mean it because they'd have to figure out waht they are doing. The basis of their virtualization is portable. Most people don't know this, but VirtalPC 5 for Windows was ported to OS/2 a back before Connectix got bought. The virtualization layer is portable separate from the host OS services. The host OS services are already written for the Mac, so it should be a matter of replacing the emulation chunk with the virtualization hcunk and tweaking some glue. A project that would be very doable for someone familiar with the code. With a little extra work, the cores could both be included and the proper one choosen at runtime to produce a Universal binary of VirtualPC. This is already possible with open projects, such as Qemu. Why doesn't Microsoft do it? They don't feel like exerting the effort because they can't dominate the market.
     
  14. Chris Price

    Chris Price Junior Member

    Messages:
    17
    Sorry, but you're way off on the VPC team. The G5 did not have Little Endian mode, which was what powered Virtual PC. A huge part of the program had to be re-written. The reason why the G5 only provides marginally better performance is not because of Microsoft, it's because the PowerPC lost the ability to rapidly translate x86 code. The fact that the G5 can emulate at the speed it can is because of the code Microsoft wrote long after the purchase fo Virtual PC.

    Microsoft abandoned VPC because the marketplace is saturated, not because of MBU incompetence. Also, Virtual PC on Windows is now freeware, so Microsoft can't justify charging Mac users as easily. Plus Virtual PC Express (the newest version) will be bundled with Vista Ultimate Edition.
     
    Last edited: Aug 9, 2006

Share This Page