Virtualization for the (Intel) Mac?

[MacRumors]

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Techworld.com reports that a company called Parallels will be announcing their virtualization product for Intel-based Macs later this week.

According to a company representative, "We will enable users to run multiple operating systems (like Linux and Windows) simultaneously with Mac OS X".

This is distinct from the dual-boot solutions that have been previously described. Instead, users can run these alternative operating systems in a window under Mac OS X.

Several have suggested that this functionality could increase Apple's marketshare with businesses and consumers alike. WSJ Online notes that Japan's Aozora Bank Ltd. is already making the move to all Mac. They are planning to switch all 2,300 of their personal computers to Mac. The bank cites the strength of Mac OS X alone as the reason for their switch. Other surveys, however, have suggested that a large number of consumers would switch to Mac if also given the ability to run Windows easily.

More details on Parellels' solution should be available later this week. Microsoft has been said to be working on an Intel-version of Virtual PC as well, but no timeframe has been given.

[pdpfilms]

So how is this different from VPC?

[twoodcc]

wow, this is great news! i might just try it on my imac

[bentoms]

Originally Posted by pdpfilms

So how is this different from VPC?

I'm guessing it'll run alot quicker as it'll be working with the Hardware & not some kind of application layer.

[arn]

Originally Posted by pdpfilms

So how is this different from VPC?

1. VPC doesn't run on Intel Macs
2. It will run much faster than the previous versions of VPC because most of it won't be emulated.

VPC for Intel Macs should have the same benefits, when/if it comes out.

arn

[Jesus]

I cant wait, I would love to be able to run C&C Generals at a reasonable speed. This will be awesome. Any word on the price??

[MacinDoc]

A bit of competition for Virtual PC can't be a bad thing...

[plinden]

Originally Posted by pdpfilms

So how is this different from VPC?

For one, VPC isn't available for Intel Macs.
Also, from the article (my emphasis):

The Russian-developed software competes directly with VMware Workstation and Microsoft Virtual PC, albeit -- at the time of launch - -at a lower price.

[skwert]

hot sauce! they came out with this a lot quicker than i expected. this is the advantage that mac needs to take a large chunk of the pc market share. dual boot...pretty cool, but somewhat annoying. this is going to move some mactels off the shelves.

[iHotu]

Hope it's cheap...

[miniConvert]

Sounds like a great news, a much more elegant solution than dual-booting.

[octoberdeath]

This is good news! now I can convince the organization I work for that we should buy an iMac with the benifits of both worlds (Mac/PC). Gosh I want them to buy an iMac... they just don't understand!

[Spartacus]

I think this is great news. The prospect of being able to use windows (for games and other programs) without having to use windows is exciting. I have a question though: will we have the same type of driver issues those trying to run windows on their macs using the dual booting method have? Could I install this virtualization program and then play Half-Life 2?

[Doctor Q]

Dual booting has its own advantages, particularly speed and compatibility. When you virtualize, you are adding another layer of software, which can do you favors (letting you switch OSes on the fly) or do you in.

I want to see reviews and performance results before jumping to a new software package.

[LimeiBook86]

Now if Apple was working on something like this for Mac OS X 10.5 that'll be nice, and free too. Oh well, at least there will be a few options to choose from. 3D Studio Max on Mac...now that'll be interesting

[Lyle]

Originally Posted by miniConvert

Sounds like a great news, a much more elegant solution than dual-booting.

Yes. A dual-boot situation would have been basically worthless to me at work (where I'm hoping to get approval for a Mac as my next desktop computer), but reasonably performant virtualization would be great. Does anyone know if VMware is working on porting their stuff to Mac OS X as well?

[greenstork]

The million dollar question is will it best fast enough to run Windows games at a reasonable (or even native) speed. You'll see a lot of Mac switchers then....

[yac_moda]

Virtualization will be SOOO Cool.

Parallels software will provide the bios needed by some OSes and virtualization implies that each OS runs in an emulation of the basic hardware only to create OSes that are fully independent.

The actual processor calls will be native so running 2 OSs should be as fast as running 2 apps in OS X.

The advantage of virtualization is being able to run multiple OSes natively with a very high level of STABILITY.

[Kelmon]

Originally Posted by Jesus

I cant wait, I would love to be able to run C&C Generals at a reasonable speed. This will be awesome. Any word on the price??

Whoa, there cowboy! I had a look at the current product when I read the headline about it earlier from CNet and, while it will emulate different hardware components such as network devices and sound cards, I didn't notice anything about display adaptors, let alone 3D acceleration. I suspect that while you'll be able to install and run Windows much more simply using this rather than the OnMac.net solution, gaming isn't something that you'll be doing, at least not beyond minesweeper.

Something that I was not able to determine from the company's web site was whether each Guest OS is entirely separate or whether it is possible to share data between Host and Guests (preferably copy/paste). I suspect that copy/paste is out given the number of OS's supported but how about file sharing?

[bcsmith]

Wouldn't this weaken the security of Mac OS? If some form of Windows is running on the computer, wouldn't the holes that are in Windows be there as well? I feel that Windows on Mac OS would probably be more secure than Windows on Windows, I just worry about the backlash about security holes that culd be opened...

[yac_moda]

Originally Posted by greenstork

The million dollar question is will it best fast enough to run Windows games at a reasonable (or even native) speed. You'll see a lot of Mac switchers then....

If virtualization is in Leopard then it should be THE BEST MACHINE FOR GAMES

I think it is VERY LIKELY the reason Dell bought Alien is because Dell knows that Jobs is building the new Macs to be great game MACchines so he bought Alien to try to counter Jobs move.

What if Apple came out with a MACchine that has BOTH a PPC and an Intel processer, game coders could build and test and all targets instantly

[C00rDiNaT0r]

I wonder why there wasn't a contest to do this so we would've gotten this solution for free, like how we got dual-booting MacOSX and WinXP lol

[FoxyKaye]

Not sure how this would be different from VPC regarding how it will actually manage the other OSes installed on the system. I tend to agree with bentoms - currently VPC actually launches a complete virtual computer, and although you can install Linux and older versions of Windows on it, M$ only officially supports WinXP. Also, the more virtual computers you launch (say I want to run WinXP and Linux side-by-side in VPC) the s l o w e r VPC gets.

Now, if Parallels' "virtual PC" does indeed translate hardware calls in a similar fashion as Rosetta - well, then this might open up the possibility to launch individual non-native OS X applications without launching an entire operating system to accompany them. There would be a memory savings over M$' VPC, and a speed boost as well (since new Macs are on Intel, and presumably there isn't a lot of translating to do). You could then run Access in a window just like iCal runs in a window on your desktop. You might not then need to actually own a copy of Windows to run Win apps - just the individual applications - though this might be a flight of fancy, since M$ will never provide all the hooks necessary without reverse engineering for their own applications.

Although, I also wonder how much functionality it will have: will it enable cut-and-paste, printer connections, USB, and so forth? VPC, despite its many shortcomings, is moderately robust regarding how much back and forth you can do between the Windows window and OS X. I hope that Parellels has enough foresight to match the features VPC offers at launch of its product.

I could see a number of companies getting back into the virtualization game depending on how easy it is to make Windows and other OS programs work on Intel OS X. Although, M$'s new version of VPC (if it's more than vaporware right now) would still be the best to run M$ programs.

Looking forward to seeing this - they've at least tried to throw down a gauntlet by getting their product out of the gate first. If it works well, it will at least show the potential of running Windows apps on an Intel Mac to many folks, and hopefully push Mac sales.

If this area develops, I'd definitely consider an Intel iMac for our nonprofit to run Blackbaud's software with our next database purchase. Otherwise, we'd need to run Blackbaud's stuff on a Windows server, which I'm much less thrilled about.

[joeconvert]

No mention of this on their web site. Nothing in the news section, and a search of their site for "Mac" returns nothing.

Smelling kind of like Vaporware.

[Peace]

This sounds great and all but remember one important thing..
The graphics card in the Intel Macs uses UGA and not VGA..That is in the cards firmware..I don't see this company being able to change that.Thus no 3D acceleration..