Codeweavers Releases CrossOver For Intel Mac

dbialac writes, "Codeweavers, one of the major players in the Wine Project, have released their first beta of CrossOver for Mac. I've downloaded it and played around with it and though there are glitches, it does seem to run programs' standard features quite well."

Re:Most tested apps

[Pink Tinkletini]

But it won't be "compatible" in the sense of running the way you'd expect a Mac program to run. You don't get Keychain integration, Services, printing is a bear, and the interface (metaphors, philosophy, etc.) is almost entirely different between the Mac and PC versions. Seems to me that if you want to run Windows programs, you're better off just running Windows instead of glopping together some awful reanimated monstrosity from beyond the grave.

Re:Seriously--does anyone plan on using this?

[CatOne]

Seriously?

What do you mean? Lots of people use Macs for business, or *want* to use Macs for business. Usually (this is assuming an IT department who is reasonable, and more and more actually are), it boils down to one or two business critical applications that are Windows only. Some of the most common ones are:

* Microsoft Outlook (because Entourage is 98% of the way there... and that's not 100%)
* Microsoft Project
* Microsoft Visio
* Microsoft Access (and custom databases that have become "business critical"
* Internet Explorer 6 (with all its bastardized VBScript and .NUT client-side proprietary extensions)
* CAD tools (Pro/E, SolidWorks, etc).

VM solutions like Parallels (and upcoming VMWare workstation) can do this, as can Boot Camp. But Crossover is lighter weight and works well also. Crossover is a very interesting and exciting option.

Again, this is predicated on whether IT permits it. I find IT departments are mostly divided into a couple groups:

* IT feels their job is to dictate technology -- they choose what's most convenient for them to control and manage, and put IT's needs in front of the users needs (i.e. users who want to run Linux or OS X on the desktop must fight and scratch and are sometimes locked out of the network altogether). CrossOver is no use here, nor is Parallels -- you offend the director of IT because he'll fall out of his l337 company with his Microsoft sales rep, and will also offend his staff of 43 MSCEs that are necessary to manage one Exchange instance ;-)

* IT who feels IT's job is to serve the needs of the business... basically they are willing to deploy and support solutions that have business value (I even heard one CIO say he let users use Macs because it was a competitive differentator when hiring... if a user could run a Mac all day at work he got more productivity out of them... this company ships tens of millions of DVDs to people in the mail every year... they're progressive ;-)

Crossover is perfect for the second case.

Why?

[Danathar]

When looking at the apps that are most used in Codeweavers and the ones with some problems.

Office 2003
Quicken
Photoshop
IE

All of these are available as Mac Native apps except IE 6. Now maybe thereis some small app I need to run, but why not just wait until the free version of Wine is ported to OS X?

Re:Seriously--does anyone plan on using this?

[Marty200]

I think you are overlooking why an IT department would "dictate" the technology used. Supporting different operating systems takes time and money. I used to be the SysAdmin for a small company. We had 5 offices 400 users. I dictated the systems and software that were used because I had limited resources with which keep everything up and running. Each office had 1 Mac to run some poorly writen database that our main supplier made us run. If one of these machines went down I would often lose a whole day working on it. Partly because of my lack of experience with Macs and partly because the software was just that bad. If more people were to run Macs, I would have had to had more training or atleast lots more time messing with them to make sure I could have them up and running all the time.

As for macs running windows software. I now do architectural drawings and reviews. I would gladly give up my Windows box for a Mac that could run Autocad. And since Autodesk doesn't seem to be making any progress maybe it could go the otherway.

MG

Re:Most tested apps

[rm69990]

So if someone loves running OS X and owns a Mac, but there is just one Windows program that they need, they should just switch to Windows??? Even if this piece of software is supported by Crossover Mac??? Guess no one who needs to do taxes in Canada should look at a Mac anytime soon. God forbid they use Parallels or Crossover to do their taxes... As for iTunes and Office, the compatability is carried over from Crossover Office for Linux.

Re:It deserves some credit...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Needless to say, intel-based Macintosh users may want to snatch this up before it goes the way of Connectix Virtual Game Station. I can't imagine Microsoft letting this get by them without a fight, when there are other options that will require users to actually own a copy of Windows.

This is based on the venerable WINE project and is a clean room reverse engineering of the Windows APIs. It has been around for many years and I doubt it is going to go away anytime soon. The only difference is a mac version is now beta testing.