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The release of the 4.0 version of Parallels’ Desktop for Mac on Nov. 11 comes a few months after VMware released the latest version of its Fusion software, which allows Windows and Linux operating systems to run along side the Mac OS X. The Parallels Desktop for Mac software, which is now available, retails for $79.99. While virtualization technology has been traditional used by consumers for their Macs, the technology is increasingly important in the enterprise as more and Macs are finding their way into boardrooms and corner offices. In this release, Parallels has included new features specifically designed for IT managers. For example, the new release of Parallel’s software allows up to 16 NICs (network interface cards) to work with each virtual machine. The software also allows an IT manager to boot a guest OS off the company’s network. Parallels has also included support for Mac OS X Server 10.5 Leopard and experimental support for the upcoming Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard as guest ...

Peter reporting from the Fusion team: Dom Barnes twittered us at the VMware Fusion twitter address @vmwarefusion this morning, noting that he’s running a developer preview of Windows 7, the successor to Windows Vista, in a virtual machine on his MacBook Pro with VMware Fusion. We were intrigued, of course, and my immediate response was, “Cool! Is Unity view working?” Turn out, sure enough, it is. And to prove it, Dom posted a screenshot of Windows 7, running in Unity view on Flickr. Check it out: Fusion blog

Sun is pretty serious about this business. Would Sun be shipping a ESX-like (ep, we all know that xVM is not really taking off) version soon out of all the development experience out of VirtualBox? I know, its a bit too late or that but you just never know! Cloud Computing is coming and whether you like your own hypervisor there or not, desktop is definitely what Sun is poised for! This now adds the ability to run 64-bit OSes on a virtual machine, an improved GUI on OS X and paid support subscription for its customers. This new release comes only a few days after the release of the maintenance release 1.6.6 which already included some important fixes, like improved stability and performance on AMD CPUs that support AMD-V virtualisation, plus better SATA drivers, shared folders performance, improved support for recent Linux kernels, and some fixes for OS-X users as well. A full "change log" detailing the bugs fixed can be found over here . Available in 32-bit and 64-bit e...

I have long waited to get VMware support for Mac OS X. Why? When I started out with the Oracle RAC series on VMware, I had a plan. Lately I am saving the world and have taken some distance from the articles ;-) I wanted to port RAC on all possible OSs. I got many like: Windows Linux Solaris now Mac OS X. Will RAC run on it? We'll find out soon, I don't promise you that it'll be ready tomorrow, but it'll be ready for sure. So it's good news to finally have those Apple things running as your VMs ;-)

1.1.3 Release Notes: Corrects a problem in which VMware Fusion encountered reactivation problems in the native Boot Camp partition and the Boot Camp virtual machine when installing Windows Vista SP1. Fixes a problem in VMware Fusion 1.1.2 that caused HGFS mounting failures in Linux guest operating systems. Fixes a problem where VMware Fusion did not distinguish between Traditional and Simplified Chinese so that if your system language preference was set to either Chinese version, Fusion would present the Simplified Chinese interface. In verison 1.1.3, Fusion differentiates between the two Chinese systems and enables the user to specify another language as a preference if Traditional Chinese is not available. Updates the Simplified Chinese on-line help. Corrects a problem in which a virtual machine originally created with a product other than Fusion got the error "Cannot connect virtual device sound" when it tried to play a sound. VMware Fusion 1.1.1 incorporated a workarou...

While people are watching Parallels and VMware go after the desktop virtualization market on Apple, Sun has a very strong message to the world. The "new-order" is about freedom and open minds. SUN MICROSYSTEMS has unveiled a useful little update to its xVM VirtualBox, open sauce desktop virtualisation, which now has support for both Solaris and Mac OS X. The update means that Sun is now officially the first firm to have launched open source virtualisation for those particular two operating systems. Sun is seeking a niche in the big-business virtualisation market. Its Virtual Box, which was developed by German company Innotek, bought by Sun this February, can run as an application on a host operating system, allowing several guest OSs to run on top of it. L'inq here You can download as many flavors as you want, including Mac OS X intel

We’re proud to announce the availability of VMware Fusion 2.0 Public Beta 1. VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 1 brings support for multiple displays, tools for even easier switching to VMware Fusion, experimental support for DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 2 3D acceleration, and more! When released, VMware Fusion 2.0 will be a free downloadable upgrade for all VMware Fusion 1.x users, as a sincere thank you to VMware Fusion early adopters. VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 1 is available as a free download. Please note: Beta software can be prone to instability and bugs. Do not run beta software in mission-critical environments. Vids: Multi-Display: If you are a Fusion 1.x user, you get a FREEEEEE update to the later to be released 2.0! What more do you want? More here...

Built on Parallels’ bare metal hypervisor architecture and award-winning hypervisor-based virtualization technology, Parallels Server for Mac enables organizations to: Standardize server hardware platforms Effectively consolidate server resources Consolidate and support legacy OSes and applications Streamline server and application deployment, maintenance and management Simplify software testing and development Optimize server and application availability A hardware-ready solution, organizations can leverage Parallels Server for Mac to seamlessly standardize on the Mac platform and to integrate into existing IT infrastructures. Parallels Server is designed to optimize the performance of virtualized systems and applications and provides cost-effective approaches to protect data and reduce the costs and complexities of IT infrastructures. Here you go!

This is celebrating my 4G beast. Our virtualization videos (VMware Fusion, Parallels) will soon be posted on Virtualization.com

Parallels Desktop 3.0 is a Mac system utility that allows users to run Windows, Linux, and more side-by-side with Mac OS X on any Intel-powered Mac, without rebooting. Parallels’ Mac virtualization technology has won over 25 major industry awards and is used by more than 850,000 users every day. * Runs Windows programs like native Mac applications with Parallels Coherence feature * Opens Windows files with Mac apps and Mac files with Windows apps using Parallels SmartSelect feature * Shares files and folders between Windows and Mac OS X via “drag-and-drop”, shared folders, and the new Mirrored Shared Folder utility, which gives users access to important documents with single-click simplicity from either Windows or Mac applications. Link

So VMware knows to participate the "WoW" phenomena which Steve keeps leading, even during the CES tis week. Blog states: Important thing to note: we are NOT showing off a “hackintosh,” using a modified version of the Mac OS X kernel. This is completely legit; we are installing Mac OS X Server directly from a factory-sealed Apple DVD onto a virtual machine running only on genuine Apple hardware. This is true virtualization. Mac OS X Leopard Server is not modified to run on VMware virtual hardware and uses Apple’s proven and shipping Leopard drivers for USB keyboard, USB mouse, IDE controller, LSI SCSI controller, High Speed USB 2.0 (UHCI and EHCI) controller, Intel e1000 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter, and VESA video adapter. Sound is not working at this time, but we are working on it! I'm sure, soon I won't be needing 10 different laptops, all I need is one hardware and several wow's. Here's the blog link.

Mac virtualization software maker SWSoft will have its latest offering, Parallels Server, on display at Macworld. The product is the first that allows virtualization of Apple's Mac OS Server 10.5 Leopard, and can run more than 50 different operating systems including different versions of Windows and Linux. Link to CRN

This is where those tests were carried out: When we were choosing computer models, we set out to choose not the fastest, latest models, but ones that would be a good representation of what most people may have. Certainly, the faster models of these computers will perform even better. Similarly, we had a greater focus on XP simply because it's more prevalent at this point, but we did want to get an understanding of how Vista performed as well. The baseline PC we used was a brand new Fujitsu Lifebook A6025, with an Intel Core Duo running at 1.86 GHz, 1GB RAM, running Windows XP SP2. We chose three Mac models to compare alongside a name brand PC: a MacBook, a MacBook Pro, and a Mac Pro. The MacBook was a 2GB RAM machine, running a 1.83 GHz Core Duo processor. The MacBook Pro was a 4GB RAM machine, running a 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo processor. And, the Mac Pro was a 4GB RAM machine, running a Quad Core configuration with two 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors. Test Types T...

Loads of new features... -Primary OS support - Leopard compatibility improvement. -Virtual devices - USB devices compatibility improvement (including Blackberry). -Bug fixes and improvements in Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac Beta (Build 5570). Primary OS support: -Parallels Desktop installer hangs on Leopard - fixed. -Can't install Parallels Desktop on Leopard when Internet Sharing is enabled - fixed. Stability and resources usage: -Parallels Desktop hangs with spinning ball when trying to start VM after changing virtual memory amount - fixed. -Several kernel panics during VM startup - fixed. -Guest Vista goes to BSOD being idle - fixed. -DOS16M (16 bit DOS extender application) crashes Parallels Desktop - fixed. -Guest Vista fails to sleep and goes to BSOD - fixed. -Fatal error when executing some command line utilities in Windows - fixed. Here's the rest of the story

However, a sharp-eyed systems engineer noticed that Leopard Server's software license agreement is significantly different. Dave Schroeder, Senior Systems Engineer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, posted to the MacEnterprise.org mailing list about his finding, calling out this change: This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Mac OS X Server software (the "Mac OS X Server Software") on a single Apple-labeled computer. You may also install and use other copies of Mac OS X Server Software on the same Apple-labeled computer, provided that you acquire an individual and valid license from Apple for each of these other copies of Mac OS X Server Software. This change applies only to Leopard Server, not to the desktop version of Leopard. Apple has not changed the software license agreements for either version of Tiger. Link at Tidbits and discuss it @ /.

New and Improved Features in VMware Fusion 1.1 Release Candidate * VMware Fusion 1.1 now includes English, French, German, and Japanese versions * Unity improvements include: o My Computer, My Documents, My Network Places, Control Panel, Run, and Search are now available in the Applications menu, Dock menu, and the Launch Applications window o Improved support for Windows Vista 32 and 64-bit editions o Improved Unity window dragging and resizing performance * Boot Camp improvements include: o Support for Microsoft Vista in a virtual machine o Improved support for preparing Boot Camp partitions o Automatically remount Boot Camp partition after Boot Camp virtual machine is shut down * Improved support for Mac OS X Leopard hosts * Improved 2D drawing performance, especially on Santa Rosa MacBook Pros

Parallels Desktop 3.0 is a popular virtualisation product which allows owners of Intel Macs to run Windows XP or Vista on their machines. Real-world workload performance has been substantially improved, especially when starting up and shutting down. This release includes improvements in resource usage, particularly processor utilisation. Users can now also allocate up to 2GB of RAM to an individual virtual machine. Windows Vista performs faster and more smoothly than in previous builds. The new release also improves Parallels Desktop's Coherence mode – these windows containing Windows software now work exactly like a Mac window, including Expose support. Go to Parallels!

Smith Micro Software, Inc. (SMSI) consumer and compression group revealed that it entered into an agreement with VMware, the global leader in software for virtualized desktops and servers, to offer VMware Fusion. The company said that VMware Fusion combines an intuitive interface that Mac users expect with the market-leading desktop virtualization platform to allow users to run PC applications seamlessly alongside existing Mac applications on Intel-based Macs. VMware Fusion automatically detects users' existing Boot Camp installations so that the users could run Windows XP alongside Mac OS X with no additional setup. Read on...

For example, the Mac OS X Desktop, Documents, Pictures and Music folders can be used as the Desktop, My Documents, My Pictures and My Music folders in Windows. There may be some circumstances where users prefer to maintain separate sets of folders in the two operating systems, but given that Parallel's existing Coherence mode allows for Mac and Windows programs to run alongside each other (instead of restricting Windows to a single virtual screen inside one Mac window), this could be much more convenient than the traditional shared folder. Read on...

Virtualization on the Mac platform has a rather lengthy history, starting with the original Virtual PC from Connectix, which emulates an x86 PC on the Power PC platform used by Apple then. With Apple's switch to Intel-based Macs, it has only gotten easier for virtualization, since the new Intel processors have virtualization support in hardware that should improve the performance of the virtualized operating system. Meanwhile, Virtual PC has gone purely Windows only, with its present owner, Microsoft choosing not to have a port of the software for the Mac, citing as a reason that Mac users have no lack of options when it comes to running other operating systems. This is actually quite a valid claim as not only does Apple provide a solution themselves with the currently downloadable beta version of Boot Camp (slated to be in the upcoming Mac OS X 10.5 aka Leopard), which requires a separate partition for Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista on an Intel Mac, there is also ...