Snooty title aside, Fusion has so far been the preferred way of getting Windows virtualised on the Mac. Competing against Parallels Desktop and the free VirtualBox from Sun, Fusion has so far shown better stability and speed when virtualising any flavour of Windows on your Mac. With the release of version 3.0, they bring in a whole lot of improvements—50+ they say—that greatly improve the Windows experience on the Mac.
From the press release:
- Performance, Finely Tuned. Support for 4-way SMP to maximize performance on the latest iMac and Mac Pro. Lower overhead and up to 2X faster resume time for a suspended virtual machine.
- More Mac-Like Than Ever. Banish the start menu and launch Windows apps from the new “always-on” applications menu, even when VMware Fusion isn’t running. VMware Fusion provides convenient new ways to experience Windows applications like Mac applications.
- Optimized for Snow Leopard. Built from the ground up for the Mac, VMware Fusion 3 leverages Mac OS X Snow Leopard’s advanced architecture with a new 64-bit core engine and native support for the 64-bit kernel, delivering even better Windows on Mac performance.
- Ultimate Windows 7 Experience. VMware Fusion 3 will be the first to enable the full Windows 7 experience, side-by-side with your Mac, complete with Windows Aero and Flip 3D.
- Best-in-Class 3D Graphics. Support for OpenGL 2.1 and DirectX 9.0c Shader Model 3 will enable users to run their favorite 3D Windows games and applications – all without rebooting.
We’ll be checking out this release; putting their claims to the test. Fusion costs $80 for a single user license, while upgrades are at $40 for 1x and 2x users. It’s priced exactly the same as Parallels Desktop 4.0 (which was released back in Novermber ‘08). Note that both software houses are known to offer steep discounts, so if you’re not in a hurry, it’s best to stick around (maybe for a Christmas bundle). You can of course try it out for free.
