VMWare Announces Version for OS X In Development

pdscomp writes "VMware has just announced at today's Apple WWDC 2006 Conference that they are developing a port of VMware to Mac OS X. People interested in beta testing the product later this year can visit this link to sign up for the public test. It will be interesting to see how things play out between VMware and Parallels. Will Microsoft bother porting Virtual PC now that there will be two other Intel OS X virtualization solutions available? Now all we need is to get Mac OS X running under Xen."

Re:One Way

[Nastard]

As a Mac user, no. What I would like, however, is another path for converting friends and family to a platform I don't mind supporting on the rare occasions something goes wrong.

Re:One Way

[LurkerXXX]

Let's see, I and many others play games and run other applications that they only write for Windows and that requires direct hardware access. And I and many others rarely use OSX, but need/like to use it occasionally.

So yes troll, lots of us would like to run OSX in a VMWare session on windows machines. And we don't need to be smoking anything to have a legitimate need.

Need for Virtual PC?

[bjb]

Only thing I can think of is that they'll bundle Virtual PC with a cheaper copy of Windows than the other players.

If I remember correctly, the standard Microsoft Office for Mac OS X is about $399 and the "professional" version is $499. Only difference? It includes Virtual PC with a copy of Windows XP Home. Now, how much is Virtual PC by itself, and how much do they charge for off-the-shelf copies?

Re:I wonder...

[SteeldrivingJon]

"if this is VMWare's subtle riposte to Transgaming's 'Cider' engine [slashdot.org] for the world of Mac gaming? It's a bit of a stretch, I know, but the timing is a little too convenient."

A) VMWare doesn't care about Mac gamers, they mostly care about business and technical users.

B) They've been working on this for a while, and running job ads for Mac developers for a couple of months. If they were responding to the Cider announcement they would be just starting development, not announcing a public beta.

Re:One Way

[IAmTheDave]

Agreed - people like "try before you buy" and allowing a person to try out OSX first would be a good thing, methinks.

Gamers still need to dual-boot

[Jaeph]

Unless I'm missing something, virtualization still is not sufficient for running a decent game, due to DX9. So if your big reason for keeping windows is MS Office or Outlook, then virtualization sounds wonderfull to me. But if you're a gamer looking to consolidate to one machine, you still need to dual-boot as far as I can see.

-Jeff