Keep up with VPC and VMware please ....

I've been comparing the products side by side for a day now - there are a lot of really good features VPC has that I don't see in the beta of Parallels for OS X nor the release for Win/Linux. Now that Parallets has reborn virtual on a Mac I think they better keep up with at least most of the features VPC and VMWare support as I'm sure porting VPC or VMWare is a lesser, more trivial task then we all probably realize.

I don't want to have to give M$ money again simply to run UNIX on UNIX !!!

An example feature ...In VPC you could set the VM so that any changes were not saved by default to the hard disk image - this is very useful to maintain a steady state machine / rollback any changes.

 

Yeah, I agree, undoable disk changes is a great feature. I use this all the time for testing software installations. It's the best way to insure that you can rollback to a clean state.

 

VPC isn't virtualization. It uses emulation, so the performance is horrible. Currently it won't work on Intel macs.

 

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Brett,

Which VM running on OSX would you like Parallels to keep up with?

That's right, there is none. Everyone else should be trying to keep up with Parallels.

You Mac people have lead very sheltered lives in the Apple vortex.
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Constant -- Us "Sheltered" Mac users in our own "Vortex" are typically in the upper 5% of all income producing brackets, and are amongst the most successful people on the planet.

So shut the ---- up.

 

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So are you one of the most successful people on the planet Bill?
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Brett,

I think there may be more of a design intent issue here than you realize. VMware was conceived and developed for developers, and focuses on a lot of problems that they encounter. At least at this stage of the Parallels product, it is focused on providing access to productivity applications on non-host OSs - which BTW it does very well. Demanding that a product consting $40 meet the specs of a product costing $200 that doesn't even exist on your platform, seems an exercise in extream consumerism that doesn't correctly focus on market realities. You can acheive the functionality you want by understanding the existing product and working with it. I would hate to see Parallels loaded up with feature creap to the point that it too costs $200 and has features that only a few people want. From what I hear, VMware is almost ready for the Mac so just be patient and pay them for what you want.

 

I'm running VPC on PPC machines, and I'd like the same features in Parallels as I have in VPC. This would make it easy for me to move to the Intel Mac platform. Of course, since Parallels is starting from scratch and has the examples of other products from which to draw features and mis-features, they are likely to do a better job.

And FWIW, I'm really not a Mac person; I'm primarily a computer person and I use whatever platform gets the job done, currently Windows and Mac, without any real solid preference. Running both on the same hardware that weighs in at under six pounds would be a dream come true, but there are other solutions such as Boot Camp, and two computers. The competition is against the alternatives whether they are a competing product or not, and the feature set required to get the job done is, well, required.

 

At first I was like "Guhwha?"... Then I remembered there is VPC for Mac...

I used to run M$ VPC (and virtual PC before it) on my XP box all the time until I discovered parallels... the Windows version isn't a emulator but a virutalization, so it's only a matter of time before they too make a OS X x86 port in my mind.

So there's no reason it wouldn't work on Intel macs, in fact if you used boot camp to go into XP on one, you could likely run Virtual PC or Virtual Server with no issues.

 

Of course, you're in the winning position right now and suggestion here is to help you retain it in the future. You can do some cash by being first but the people are right here: you also must be able to smooth down all the issues and pack the product with all the features that users can find in Microsoft VPC or VMWare. Today, in the technology business it seems like it's good to be early and first but it's much better and more profitable to be simply better. Look at Google - good example.

Just to demonstrate what I'm saying. I'm now running your Beta4 on my iMac (early 2006 Intel version). It's a stunning product and I would most probably pre-order right now if I was sure you would be supporting also drag&drop + USB. Of course, it's 99% that I'm going to buy the product maybe even not full featured, especialy if the others delay so much, but there would be a lot of users preferring to wait for a full-packed software and this is lost opportunity.

 

Hmmm...... so you seem to think its easier for Parallels to build a competitive and robust feature set on their product than it is for someone like VMWare to port to OS X (mach really) ? Or perhaps you assume that since Microsoft made a great product which ran on PowerPC and OS X that they can't muster the resources to port it over to an Intel platform ?

As Bill said (well a bit revised by Parallels) ..... SHUT THE ---- UP AND COME BACK WHEN YOU CAN AFFORD A REAL COMPUTER.

 

Constant,

I'm not sure Bill is one of the "most" successful people on the planet but I'd like to mention I'd met him when I was a lucky guest at the Monaco Mac User Group's VIP box at Wimbledon and he seemed to be amongst his peerage. That day really sticks out in my mind as we had a rousing discourse during evening drinks about the plight of the colonist sheep farmers in the land down under. We went so far as to ponder the existence of Macs in Oz but dismissed it as folly when a vision of the dung encrusted grubby hands of a Queenslander holding a Mac Book Pro came into our minds. Aesthetics aside its also hard to imagine the concept of a one button mouse taking ahold down there as we all know it took them so many years to learn the concepts of left and right.

Cheerio ....

 

Thanks for the well thought reply and rationalized thinking. I agree Parallels may well have consumer/productivity plans for Workstation 2.1/OS X but if you look deeper at the company PR and site you'll find they have a lot of enterprise products in mind too. So do I

Personally I'll gladly pay for the basic feature set it offers now with no additions (but I'm waiting until its a stable / reliable product at least). However for my professional needs and as you've pointed out the needs of developers there are many features which need to be included. If they keep up with VMWare on that front and at least match VPC for Mac I know I'd happily pay $200 for the product especially when ported to OS X.

I think my big thought here is that I'm excited they made it first out of the gate with an OS X port and I'm really really hoping they'll be amongst my first choice when I eventually have to recommend a VM solution to clients. To get to that point though it needs at least equal if not exceeding functionality and most of all support.

Perhaps they need 2 or 3 versions for Workstation - basic, professional and/or developer.

If they only target consumer / end users on a single cpu they'll go broke in a hurry. If you can sell my clients 300 seats at $200 per licence with annual support at 20% of that you'll see its quite profitable for all of us.

 

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Personal attacks are grubby, but denegration of an entire population is extremely undesirable at any juncture. Is this the sort of thing to be pervading these forums?

Please ban the person who makes such bigoted statements.
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I would argue that just because of one company's history - Borland. A company that today seems to have forgotten the lessons of it's origin. In an age where compilers from M$ and Dec were >$500 a whack, they introduced a comparable product at the $50 price point, and everyone and their brother got on board. The entire 'turbo' line dominated the 80's. Mind you, this example has no place after 1990 when the pricing on compilers skyrocketed again, or today where M$ HAS to offer their compilers to compete with GCC... but the principal holds.

They are underselling M$ VPC for windows by 50%, and VMWare (full, where you can make your own VM) by a good deal more than that. If they can keep the price point at the same cost as most commercial games, they should be able to run them out the door in comparable quantities, making up for the lower retail.

You'd think VMWare player would be a harsh undercut for that market, but let's face it... VMWare is not for the timid, even in the simplified player version. The way it sinks it's tendrils in to the host OS, convoluted setup of VM's and more features than the average user needs are major strikes against it as a consumer level product... and major advantages for it as a enterprise level one. The terminology it uses ALONE would scare the script kiddies right back to VB.

Parallels on the other hand has 'kept it simple'... and feels more 'tight' and 'polished' even lacking some of the other features. To be honest, it looks so much like the old 4.0 Virtual PC for windows I was wondering if it was a fork - and that's a GOOD THING.

Funny thing is, Parallels really is the 'new kid' in the virtualization arena compared to VPC and vmWare, yet have in remarkable time caught up on features. Equalling or surpassing the larger/slower monoliths shouldn't be a real issue apart from time.

 

Hmmmm .... seems you're the first one to throw a stone at an entire population "You Mac people have lead very sheltered lives in the Apple vortex." Perhaps you should try to understand that for us the whole Mac experience is nothing less than spiritual .....

 

I"ll agree they've made a lot of progress in such a short time. I really wish them success as I'd like to see more alternatives in the VM offerings in the market. Though I'm an OS X fan at home most of my work is in Solaris or Linux. I am seeing more OS X stuff professionally though - I know a client who is running PPC macs on the desktop and in parts of the data center infra which is quite bold for the financial industry. From seeing their successes I can say it is achievable and there really are viable / supportable alternatives to an XP desktop with a rich development environment. I also have to note they don't have any apps in production inventory that run on XP so they're really not a current consumer for XP based VMs (though I do anticipate them wanting to run Solaris or LInux based apps soon).