bit-tech Shopping: Smith Micro VMware Fusion (Full Product, Mac)

• Mac OS X v10.4 (Tiger)
• Mac OS X v10.5 (Leopard)

Rating: 10

Time with product: 1 Weeks

Strengths: Run multiple OS's virtually, Unity mode

Weaknesses: No Firewire support

Summary: Fusion allows you to run many Operation Systems virtually in the Mac OS. You can run Windows, Linux, etc. Supports 32 and 64 bit OS's and multi-core processors. Unity mode is great, it lets you run your windows apps without having the whole windows desktop. It's like having your "start" menu in the Mac OS. Unfortunately, Fusion currently doesn't support Firewire. I hope support will be added in a future software update.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 10

Strengths: Fast, Easy to setup, multitude of prebuilt appliances, support for dual core

Weaknesses: None So Far

Summary: The built in support for dual core processors is what caused me to switch from Parallels. Easy to setup and use. The ability to download pre-built OS installs is ideal for trying various operating systems. I have used multiple different VM products for the Mac and so far this looks like it has the most features.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 14

Strengths: Fast (for windows) and has an easy to use interface.

Weaknesses: None

Summary: I've been using VMWare fusion for about 2 weeks and it does everything i need it to do. It's a must for people who want to make the switch to mac but also have some non mac programs/software they still want to be able to use.

Rating: 8

Time with product: 20 Days

Strengths: Easy installation; allows use of Windows programs on a Mac; performance is good

Weaknesses: Could have better documentation; Can't use snapshot for backups of virtual machine when running based on bootcamp

Summary: I wanted a way to use Windows programs on my MacBook (2 GB of RAM, Leopard) without re-starting in Bootcamp, primarily to run a few business related applications (Microsoft office, Citrix, etc., Windows XP). Since these were not heavy resource demanding applications (unlike 3D games, for example), I was optimistic that they would work fine on a virtual machine and wanted to be able to open them without re-booting. I chose Fusion over the competitive program, Parallels, primarily based on price after then available rebates on Fusion. I read a lot of reviews/comments/debates and both programs have their defenders, and their strong and weak points. Although most users seem to subjetively experience Fusion as "snappier", some testing claims Parallels to perform faster on many tasks. Since every new version or upgrade of one or the other seems to change the balance of power between the two, price seemed as good a reason as any to chose one over the other. Installation was straightforward and easy. Fusion recognized my Bootcamp partition and installed smoothly. Performance is great. Both my Mac programs and the Windows programs in the virtual machine seem to co-exist well and I don't see any noticable difference in performance. So far everything seems very stable as well. I was disappointed to discover that the snapshot feature in Fusion does not work with a Bootcamp-based virtual machine (I don't know if the backup feature in Parallels would work or not with Bootcamp - I downloaded the freeware program Winclone to backup my Bootcamp partition in order to partially compensate for the lack of a backup in Fusion). Unity mode allows Windows programs to act like Mac windows, shrink to the Dock, etc., but so far my preference is to use spaces and run Windows by itself in one of the spaces. The only problem I had was printing from my virtual machine to my wireless network printer. Fusion provides 30 day free email tech support, which was very quick and responsive and gave me two alternative ways to solve the problem. The first did not work, but the second did.

Rating: 8

Time with product: 1

Strengths: Allows virtualization of Windows onto an Intel iMac computer

Weaknesses: Still need a copy of Windows to install

Summary: What a neat solution to allow you to virtualize Windows onto your Intel iMac and almost seamlessly blend the two operating systems.Two operating systems running simultaneously obviously need more memory to operate efficiently and dual core cpus help a lot too.Parallels is a competing product, but cpu and memory utilization are supposed to be higher, and not sure if Parallels allows you to take advantage of both cores in a dual core system with Windows.