New Macbook User (Few Questions)

Me thinks you have not lurked long enough. Parallels vs. Fusion iWork vs. Office

 

Parallels and VMware Fusion are both awful, use bootcamp or you'll be back here asking for our help in a week.

 

vmware and parallels both awful?

that's a pretty broad statement, and you haven't really given us reasons as to why they are "awful."

i've used vmware for 12 months (v1 and v2,) and i've had very few problems only issue i've had was getting a particular epson printer to print in colour. everything else has been great as far as i have seen.

 

I've been using Parallels for several years, including the latest 4.0 version, and I find it to be excellent. I've heard VM ware is similar, as another poster mentioned.

I'm not sure where your comments about them being awful came from. Have you actually tried either piece of software?

 

I use VMware all the time and have had little to no problems with it.
It runs all my work apps without a problem. I also use bootcamp if I play or use more graphic intense games or apps.
I say try it. VMware used to have a trial version not sure if they do or not anymore.

 

Fusion tends to perform a little better in most situations. I've used both (incl. Parallels 4.0 and Fusion 2) and prefer Fusion. Either one can use a Boot Camp partition as a VM, but be careful as there are some potential minor complications involved with either one. For Windows, I recommend sticking with XP, as Vista is a real pig when run through a VM.

iWork is better than Office in many ways and not as good in others, but the ubiquity of Office makes it the better choice for your needs.

 

I love Fusion on my MBP and it continues to exceed my expectations and provide me with no headaches.

 

Fusion is great as long as you don't want to play games.

 

...and for that, you can simply use Crossover Games. Best app out there for a small price. Well worth the money.

 

I'm stuck using Office because it's such a standard in the corporate world, at least for now; some of my clients specify that files be delivered in Office (although note that many U.S. government agencies are still on Word 2003 and can't read Word 2008 files). But I think Word is needlessly overcomplicated and we waste far too much time on final format issues.

Haven't tried iWork since a couple versions ago, at that time it didn't do what I needed in a smooth enough way.

So my solution has been to use Google docs for everything except the final version, and then bring it into Word last second. I wouldn't even bother with that if those few clients didn't still insist on it. I'm looking forward to the day when I can entirely remove Office from my computer.