Parallels versus VMWare

Thought not officially announced, it was mentioned by one of the VMWare seniors, that they had an OSX version up and running. I'll post the link once I can find it.

I still think, though, that PW will have the edge on price.

 

Dianne Green - the president of VMware

http://blogs.usatoday.com/maney/2006/04/mac_and_xp_a_vi.html

 

vmware is more mature and can hand running multiple VMs better for running network simultations on a host. in parallels, if you restart or shut down one of the guest VMs, the others crash.

 

How Parallels can win for sure

The coup will be if Parallels workstation can open VMWare and Virtual Server images. Virtual Server can already read VMWare.

Otherwise, even if the price for PW and VMWare Workstation were the same (which they definitely will not be), Parallels has my vote for being first to market and because of their responsiveness during the beta.

 

Aha! That's the one. Thank you!

 

VMWare's experience and skill in the virtualization area is considerable, plus they have done an outstanding job for the Windows platform, which is closed source. If they were to announce a competing product for an open source OS like OS X, I am certain it would rock. We should all hope they do produce something, because competition is often a benefit to the end user.

 

I think we can assume it's a *when* and not an *if* at this point -- the VMware CEO is on record as saying a product is on the way.

However, you're correct in that they will obviously have a ways to go as far as stability is concerned, though I'm guessing that at the end of this stabilization period they will be selling a product that has feature parity with the PC product, and probably price parity too.

That will mean VMware will have the high ground compared to PW for a while, but I can't see any technical reasons why PW cannot catch up, in which case VMware will have to compete on price. All the better for us consumers, hehe.

--Tim

 

Parallels vs VMWare

Virtualization Product Market Value:
1. Stability & Security
2. Hardware Support
3. Speed
4. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
5. Other Features
6. User Interface

Parallels Strengths:
- Fast to Mac market (may be a customer disadvantage if final product is still unstable)
- Responsive

Parallels Weaknesses:
- Not a market leader
- Not as mature in virtualization (at least in customer perception)
- Possibly not as stable/secure as VMWare (if we use non-MacOS implementation to compare)
- Possibly not as fast as VMWare (if we use non-MacOS implementation to compare)
- Not as much support for various relevant OSes

Parallels Opportunities:
- Mac specific speed/space optimization
- Mac specific security enhancements
- Mac specific User Interface enhancements (total/partial immersion)
- reduced TCO

------------

I'm one of those people waiting for the next Mac OS to arrive to buy a Dual Core Powerbook to replace an existing Powerbook. I'm looking with great interest at the development of Parallels as it relates to my workflow. I doubt Parallels/VMWare is aimed at home users, since they're better addressed with a dual boot solution for gaming and occasional use of WinXP applications (although it would be cool if graphics hardware could be efficiently shared, but I'm not counting on it). So, Parallels/VMWare is most likely addressing the professional workflow, whether for IT, design, scientific or engineering applications. I think the potential for engineering applications is enormous (one that I'm actively observing).

If Parallels is equivalent to VMWare in the first 3 market value items (stability&security/hardware/speed), I'm likely to buy it since the dev team is very responsive (as long as there is an aggressive product roadmap for developing/including the time-tested VMWare virtualization features). However, if stability & security is compromised in any way, then I'll probably go for VMWare (dealing with kernel crashes & consequent memory loss is too time-consuming; it's the very reason I use a Mac instead of WinXP). I will buy VMWare if Parallels sacrifices (as compared to VMWare) stability/hardware support/speed for other features.

As a loyal Mac user & Mac software supporter, I hope to see Parallels become a market leader in the Mac market through Mac specific optimizations/features. For example, provided Parallels is stable/secure, it would be great to see if Parallels can use special Mac-specific features like XGrid to seamlessly use spare cycles/memory for resource heavy Virtual applications. Another feature I would personally love to have is the ability for a Mac application to directly print to a Windows GDI printer. Anything to improve the workflow between Mac applications/documents/hardware with Windows (2000/XP) applications/documents/hardware ...

Anyway, these are my thoughts, and may be different from everyone else's. Hopefully not too far tho' ...

 

I'm currently running the Windows version of PW, and I've had no problems with it. Over the weekend, I installed the VMware Server beta, to compare. I installed Solaris10, as I've done with PW. The only difference I could find, was that the xorg config seemed to detect the graphic settings, whereas I had to set it by hand with PW. No big issue.

From my point of view, PW does exactly what I need it to. Now if only there was a discount for buying both Windows/Mac versions of PW

 

vwware now supports directx.

 

vmware has exist for at least 6 or 7 years now, yet they still not support mactel. Parallels is maybe about half years old, and have released mactel version as promised. And parallels is the first to make use of the VTX cpu feature. I am quite convinced that parallels is technically amibitious and competent, will blow away other competion very soon.

 

Using both cores

How do you get Parallels to use both cores on a Mac Mini, I have not been able to?
Do you have to disable VT-x or something?

 

Parallels cannot use both cores.

 

Hello!

And how many years mactel exist?

Cheers, Roman

 

another point parallels is better over VMware: its flexibility of USB devices support and that's why I dropped VMware. VMware server requires server version of OS to run, which cost a lot more compared to a paid version of Parallels.

just curious, is it easy to use the same image HDD file and switch between VMware and Parallels?

 

Some of you have stated that VMWare has only said they intend to support Mac OS X.

They announced a product. It is coming.

http://www.vmware.com/news/releases/mac.html

 

Could you clarify your comment here? VMware Server does not require the server version of any OS to run. I'm currently running it on XP Media Center. I use it to run Solaris 10, Kubuntu ( desktop version ) and Win2003. I've now un-installed the Win32 version of Parallels, and solely use VMware.

As much as it pains me to say it, if I were Parallels, I would be seriously worried about any release from VMware, even taking into account the cost of WS ( obviously the first Mactel product available ). I'm hoping that at some point they will release a Mactel version of Server.

 

VMware server is not officially supported in non-Server Windows OS. However, there are reports about people running VMWare server successfully on Windows XP Do it at your own risk, they will not support it. The reason for them to release VMWare server for free is to counter attack Virtual Server from Microsoft, which is free up to 4 Microsoft OS licenses if you purchase the Server2003 Enterprise edition.

 

I think it's main requirement for an server OS is IIS ( IIS under XP can only handle one site ). However, I've yet to need it. When I need to control the VM, I use the console, or the Perl interface. I'm not that bothered if VMware refuse to support it, I'm no worse off as that's about on par with the level of support that I've had from Parallels regarding Solaris issues, and that was with two paid products, one of which I no longer use.