Parallels on Wednesday released Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac, a new version of its virtualization software that allows Intel-based Macs to run Windows and Linux alongside Mac OS X.
According to Parallels, the new version of its software is up to 300 percent faster than the previous version, Parallels Desktop 4. The company also hired Crimson Consulting Group to do performance testing on Parallels 5 and said it was 22 percent faster than its nearest virtualization competitor when running Windows 7 64-bit on a MacBook Pro.
While the competitor wasn't named by Parallels, it is widely thought the virtualization market is ruled by Parallels and VMWare's Fusion for Mac.
Speaking with CNET, Parallels CEO Serguei Beloussov said company had three main goals when making Parallels 5 for Mac: make it faster; make it smarter and easier; and make it more powerful.
Beloussov said the company achieved those goals by adding support for gestures, supporting a broader range of 3D features, and optimizing Parallels to handle virtual hardware and drivers more efficiently.
Parallels 5 also adds a new viewing mode called Crystal, which is similar to Coherence, where Windows completely disappears from your desktop. However, Crystal adds the Windows taskbar items on the top of the Mac OS X menu, allowing easy access.
Apple also offers a way to run Windows on an Intel-based Mac. It's called Boot Camp, but it requires the user restart the computer and run Windows separately from the Mac OS. While that may be inconvenient for many users, the native speed of running on the hardware was always seen as a major advantage. Parallels says they can now beat that.
"Parallels is faster than Boot Camp," Beloussov said. "Most slow downs with Windows is not because of computational problems, it's handling drivers. We offer optimized virtualized hardware and drivers, making it faster."
Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac is available for $79.99 or $49.99 for an upgrade.
(Credit:
CNET)
It's no secret you can run various flavors of Windows on Intel Macs using Apple's Bootcamp or other popular virtualization software options like Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion. Any of these work great if you need to run Windows software on your Mac or even test beta software worry free, but a fairly recent discovery of mine might be a better choice. VirtualBox is the free, cross-platform, open-source virtualization software I used to get the Windows 7 beta running on a Mac, and it just received a major update.
VirtualBox 3.0 (Windows or Mac) lets you create a secure virtual environment to run the OS of your choice without effecting anything else on your computer. This means that in addition to being able to run software meant for a different system, you'll also be able test beta software without fear of conflicting with your current regular setup.
A handy wizards make it easy to set up a virtual system quickly.
(Credit: CNET)The new version of VirtualBox offers a huge laundry list of new features and fixes, but the major version updates include the capability to run up to 32 virtual CPUs; run programs (games!) that require Direct3D 8 or 9 (Windows); and newly added support for OpenGL 2.0 for Windows, Linux, and Solaris.
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VMware)
VMware released version 1.1 of its Fusion virtualization software to run Windows on Intel-based Apple computers Monday--along with an offer for free versions of the software to some bloggers.
"I have convinced the powers at VMware central that there's big-time value in having a strong, open conversational relationship with the blogosphere," Peter Kazanjy, senior product marketing manager for VMware's Mac products, said in an e-mail sent to bloggers and seen by CNET News.com.
"I'm...offering an open NFR (not for resale) policy for people who are honest-to-goodness bloggers." There's "no obligation to blog about VMware Fusion, but if you do, please go ahead and send a link back to us to vmware.com/mac," he added. Unlike the free 30-evaluation version VMware also offers, the NFR version doesn't expire.
The offer was sent to fewer than 60 bloggers, a VMware representative said, and Kazanjy apparently didn't want to extend it to the entire blogosphere. "Feel free to let your blog friends know, but do me a favor and don't blog this offer," he said in the letter.
Fusion is playing catch-up with SWsoft's Parallels, which entered the market first. But VMware, which leads the overall virtualization market, is on the attack: the company also released a beta version of a tool to import Parallels virtual machines into VMware so that Windows installations can be moved to the other virtualization foundation.
According to VMware and Kazanjy, features in Fusion 1.1 include "robust" support for Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard"; upgraded but still experimental support for DirectX 9.0 3D graphics; support for Boot Camp partitions as virtual machines; improvements to the "Unity" feature that lets Windows applications occupy a window unencumbered by menu bars and other Windows operating system elements; the ability to synchronize iPhone with Microsoft Outlook running in Windows; and performance improvements.
Fusion costs $80, but the upgrade is free.
VMware Server 2 beta, too
On Tuesday, VMware announced an open beta of VMware Server 2.0, its free server virtualization product known years ago as GSX Server. Unlike the premium ESX Server, VMware Server runs on a host operating system, Linux or Windows.
The new version should be generally available in 2008, VMware said.
New features include:
• Support for VMI, "paravirtualization" technology that lets Linux run much faster.
• Support for Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 beta, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon", among others.
• A Web-based management interface.
• Support for up to 8GB of memory and two processors per virtual machine.
• Support for 64-bit guest operating systems, as long as the software is running on a 64-bit host.
Parallels runs Windows in a window.
(Credit: CNET Networks)With all the news this week surrounding the new Safari beta for Mac and Windows, it seems like a good time to bring up a program that strongly (and literally) links the two. The Intel-powered Macs have been running Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux for some time now with Apple's Boot Camp (updated recently). But one of the best programs on the market for switching between operating systems just got a full-point upgrade with Parallels Desktop 3.... Read more
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