VMware herald Monday that it will price its upcoming Windows - on - Mac virtualization software system at a price like to its rival , Parallels Desktop .
VMware said that its Fusion software can be pre - ordered begin Tuesday for $ 40 , or for $ 80 when it becomes generally useable near the remnant of August . Parallels priced its Parallels Desktop rendering 3.0 at $ 80 when it became generally available Thursday , with an upgrade price of $ 40 . Both products make it possible for Mac exploiter to run Microsoft Windows at the same time with Mac OS X.
VMware released Fusion Beta 4 for Macs on Thursday . Besides running Windows OSes , both products can also run Linux and Solaris operating system of rules .
VMware says one key feature of Fusion , called Unity , earmark for unseamed transition from Mac to Windows practical program . Like Parallels ’ comparable “ Coherence ” lineament , with Unity picture for Windows lotion will be displayed along with those of Mac covering in OS X ’s Dock .
“ Unity cook Windows apps work just like Mac apps , ” said Patrick Lee , elderly product managing director for VMware . “ The VMware Fusion Launcher allows you to look for and find Windows apps well from your Mac without having to do anything extra . You do n’t need to use the [ Windows ] start menu . The start menu goes away . ”
VMware and Parallels will figure out with the arrive Mac OS X version 10.5 , code - bring up Leopard , due in October . Apple CEO Steve Jobs , in a keynote address at Apple ’s Worldwide Developer Conference Monday in San Francisco , said that Leopard will let in Apple ’s Boot Camp as a standard feature . Boot Camp also enables a Mac figurer to run Windows , but not at the same time .
Jobs said Boot Camp is “ a great complement ” to Parallels or VMware . “ There are three great ways to run Windows on a Mac , ” he said , adding that Apple is supporting VMware and Parallels “ as much as we can . ”
Someone could use either Boot Camp or the Parallels / VMware approach , or both , to give them different options for running Windows applications on a Mac , said Gordon Haff , master IT advisor at enquiry firm Illuminata Inc.
“ With Boot Camp , you would boot up into Windows run natively or you would boot up into OS X run natively . With VMware Fusion or Parallels , you ’ll bring up up into Mac OS X and then will have a hosted Windows virtual simple machine running on top of OS X , ” Haff said .
Haff said that “ there is no erotic love lost ” between rivals VMware , a subsidiary company of EMC , and Parallels , which is owned by SWSoft . While each company shoot a line features that name its mathematical product from the contender , Haff trust the products ’ features are largely comparable .
It became leisurely for Macs to move the Windows OS once Apple convince its computer product line to Intel fleck in 2006 .
