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VMware Server for Windows is Free, but for Mac costs $$
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I don't think there is such a thing as "VMWare server for Mac" and "VMWare server for Windows". As far as I know, VMWare server runs on raw iron, not on any operating system, just like the Xen server.
Could you be confusing this with the VMWare Fusion software for the Macintosh?
There is VMware Server and it is one of their free products. VMware Infrastructure 3.x is the product that runs directly on the hardware. VMWare server needs a host OS.
This page says VMware Server is free, and I've downloaded it and used it on Windows for months now, absolutely FREE. But Fusion for my Mac cost ~$45. WTF?!
Fusion is the equiv. of VMWare Workstation, which is not free.This page says VMware Server is free, and I've downloaded it and used it on Windows for months now, absolutely FREE. But Fusion for my Mac cost ~$45. WTF?!
My guess as to why VMWare Server is free is that it has something to do with Microsoft giving away their Virtual Server for free.
This page says VMware Server is free, and I've downloaded it and used it on Windows for months now, absolutely FREE. But Fusion for my Mac cost ~$45. WTF?!
VMWare Server is free, but VMWare Workstation costs $189.00. VMWare Workstation offers more functionality than Server (such as a proper snapshot manager) and also more than Fusion which is presumably why it costs so much more. VMWare give away server as an incentive for companies to try their server products and hopefully sell them onto infrastructure which is where they make the real money, whilst developers or anyone else who needs the extra functionality of VMWare Workstation will buy it (I know I have for years). There is absolutely no incentive for VMWare to give away Fusion and they charge what is a reasonable amount IMO (in fact the pre-release price was an absolute steal!) for a fantastic piece of software.