VMware’s Fusion Causing Unparalleled Reaction?
Is VMware’s Fusion causing some to take an Unparalleled Virtual Machine view? I spoke with District Administration Magazine’s and Sensible Sites’ Web designer Stephanie Martinez, and followed up with Pat Lee, group manager of computer products for VMware, who sees VMware’s Fusion as a perfect education fit as well.
DA: “Stephanie, I asked you to tell me what you thought about VMware from the point of view of a Web designer.”
Stephanie Martinez: “I had been using Parallels for about five months. I tried VMware Fusion and found the installation was very easy. My existing virtual machine was copied by VMware Fusion and an exact duplicate was made. It was kind of a one-click installation. Once that’s completed at the very end of the installation you have to activate the VMware Fusion toolset. After that, it automatically restarts and you’re off and running. If you select an option called Single Unity Window, you can actually run you’re Windows and your Mac operating systems simultaneously from one window, with your Windows applications at the top and your Mac applications along the bottom. When you select a Windows application from the dropdown menu, it becomes an Icon on your Mac dock. So if you’re a Mac user and familiar with using that dock - It brings you a lot closer to having the feel of a single operating system.”
DA: “You were using Parallels. Did you have any difficulty switching to Fusion?”
Martinez: “No, I chose the Input Utility feature and it took my entire Parallels installation and brought it over.”
DA: “So all the software you already had installed…”
Martinez: “Yes, every program that I had - Microsoft Office, Microsoft developer solutions…. The only thing I had to do was to reactivate Window. You have to do that when you switch Virtual Machines. If you’ve exceeded your installs, Microsoft actually has a number you can call. I think they’re getting used to this. So, I just keyed in the numbers for my new activation. I think that I would gain a lot more by taking the time to read the VMware documentation, which seems to be excellent. There are some videos and downloadable documents.”
DA: “Because you are a Web designer, you need to have multiple browsers open at the same time. How does Fusion handle that?”
Martinez: “As a Web designer I would normally have Internet Explorer and Firefox open at the same time on both a Mac and a PC. Now I can have all my Windows and my Mac browsers open at the same time, and switch very quickly from browser to browser.”
DA: “Do you feel this is faster? What are the benefits of this over what you were using?”
Martinez: “Yes, it’s faster. I had been experiencing some pretty drastic system slowdowns and had to do some fixes - it wasn’t intuitive for me. With VMware Fusion I didn’t have to do anything. So from a nontechnical user perspective it was a lot smoother and seems to run very fast. I have almost no downtime switching from an application on one operating system to an application. I don’t feel like my machine (MacBook Pro) is working any harder. From a visual experience, applications opened in Fusion take over the full screen, but because I can click an application in the dock, instead of having to minimize the application, I always know where I am. The beauty of it for me is that I’ve done absolutely no additional reading to use it. I just chose Unity and Single User at installation for total functionality.”
DA: “What Windows OS are you using on your MacBook Pro?”
Martinez: “XP, I haven’t used Vista - my preference is XP.”
DA: “Overall recommendations?”
Martinez: “I would recommend this, especially for Web designers - anyone who does the type of work I do, to test in different operating systems.”
Additional Information:
Pat Lee, group manager in charge of consumer products for VMware Fusion: “VMware is reliable and stable and the pricing is right - the home-user price is $79.99 and $39.99 for the education market.”
DA: “What do you believe separates Fusion from others as a Virtual Machine solution?”
Lee: “We have a long history, actually starting as a research project out of Stanford about 10 years ago. We were the first to do 3D and multiple processors in a Virtual Machine. We’ve taken all that knowledge to give the best experience possible, and you can run Windows and Mac at the same time. We launched it last August after some extension beta testing. We think it’s a perfect solution for education. Anyone can walk into a computer lab and use VMware immediately.”
I am also a designer but my firm did the exact opposite. vmware consistently crashed. i couldnt even get it up and running before they were trying to charge me more money for tech support. i know i only needed about 10 licenses but i mean come on. switching to parallels has been flawless.