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It wouldn't have run like garbage then, which it would now. That's going to rather limit it's market potential.
SoftWindows on PowerPC was a heaping pile of garbage on top of a river of molasses flowing uphill, but for those that needed it, it worked. If Apple is correct about how the M1 handles X86 instructions, then, it could, in theory, work at near native speeds.
 
This will make it a real dilemma when the M2/M1X 16"MBP comes out. I use a Windows VM for a select few tasks based on some legacy software and I also MS Project a few times per year. It is nothing critical, but it beats schlepping across the house to fire up my old Windows laptop.

To my knowledge there are no viable Mac alternative to Project. Smartsheet is great - but I don't want to pay monthly for something that I use 5-6 times a year at most and, well, subscribing/canceling is a pain.

I get that my use case is pretty rare though.

Windows 365 or similar Windows in the cloud would cover your Windows needs. OmniPlan is very full featured as a MS Project replacement.
 
Yeah, I'm switching from Parallels and their 8GB memory limit..
That might be a good reason to switch from Parallels, but not providing Windows Driver updates is a big bummer...

And from Tom's Hardware

"Also, VMware's Fusion will not run macOS 12 virtual machines (VMs), since VMware has to "use a whole different set of APIs, and that breaks ESXi compatibility." At present, discrete GPU support does not work on virtual machines properly (not a problem for M1) and Ubuntu VMs can only accelerate 3D graphics using the CPU."

Which implies poorer performance than what I'd be seeing with Parallels right now, and no future support for macOS 12. Not to mention Windows 10 is actually supported, from a drivers standpoint. Then there's that whole the "customers are responsible for making sure they are compliant with an operating system's licensing agreement" thing again...
 
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Yeah, but for the past 15 years the Intel compatibility with either native or virtualized Windows (or other OS) was a big incentive for people that needed to run Windows (or other) software for work, and wanted the Mac experience for their day to day usage.

For many that meant having to only carry one laptop, and the extra cost of the Mac platform was justified. That is no longer the case going forward.
Yup. That was me. :(
 
Yeah, but for the past 15 years the Intel compatibility with either native or virtualized Windows (or other OS) was a big incentive for people that needed to run Windows (or other) software for work, and wanted the Mac experience for their day to day usage.

For many that meant having to only carry one laptop, and the extra cost of the Mac platform was justified. That is no longer the case going forward.

People have other options now. Windows in the cloud being one. Even before Apple's ARM transition, my use of Windows greatly diminished as more and more functions once relegated to exclusive PC programs moved to browser-based or open-source software. Once MS Project went online, the few times a month I needed windows went away without a fight. Nothing was worse than having to fire up a virtual machine and having hours of updates and patches to apply just so I could do a few simple tasks or look at some proprietary documents.
 
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How many arm versions even exist beyond the barebone versions for the SBC industry?
No clue, but I imagine more will become available. I've tried a version of Ubuntu in parallels, but that was just a try, I really don't like using Linux very much.
 
UTM, an open-source qemu based virtualization solution is now able to emulate other CPUs on M1 Macs (slow... but it works)

https://mac.getutm.app (also in the Appstore)
It's not quite good enough yet, needs work on the networking part. (and for me, something faster than an M1 to run it on.) Though I didn't try something like Win98 or WinME, that might run fast enough. (Windows 2000 BSOD's on it)
 
Windows 365 or similar Windows in the cloud would cover your Windows needs. OmniPlan is very full featured as a MS Project replacement.

Thanks and yes. I have thought of that (and it would be a business expense for me so no big deal). I just feel like the world has gone to 'death by subscription' and I don't want to have so many monthly's for things that I only use here and there.
 
What is the point, VMware? Parallels Desktop 16 already does all of it plus it runs Windows 10. Parallels Desktop 17 also runs Windows 11 with TPM emulation. TPM is required for Windows 11. VMware, you are so behind at this point, you may as well just give up and drop Mac support.
 
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That might be a good reason to switch from Parallels, but not providing Windows Driver updates is a big bummer...

And from Tom's Hardware

"Also, VMware's Fusion will not run macOS 12 virtual machines (VMs), since VMware has to "use a whole different set of APIs, and that breaks ESXi compatibility." At present, discrete GPU support does not work on virtual machines properly (not a problem for M1) and Ubuntu VMs can only accelerate 3D graphics using the CPU."

Which implies poorer performance than what I'd be seeing with Parallels right now, and no future support for macOS 12. Not to mention Windows 10 is actually supported, from a drivers standpoint. Then there's that whole the "customers are responsible for making sure they are compliant with an operating system's licensing agreement" thing again...
Hi there =)

We may eventually provide drivers, we're discussing. It's just not in scope at this phase.

Disagree on the 3D/2D performance implication tho. Parallels is currently doing the same thing (the gpu driver is effectively 'llvmpipe' on both), performance wise they're both pretty much the same and are both not using a Metal hardware based rendering process on the host.

And we're not saying no future for macOS guests, just that it's a different body of work than we do for other OS types and it isn't in scope in this phase of the development.
 
there isn't exactly much business value relative to the engineering effort that is required to support Intel-based operating systems on M1 Macs.

What is he talking about? It IS the only reason most people would buy this.

The problem is that these are Virtualization tools, and we need Emulation tools now.
 
I made a serious mistake of acquiring M1 hardware without thoroughly checking its compatibility with my work. When M1 first came out I immediately got myself a Mac Mini only to find out VMware doesn't have a Fusion version that would work with it. Main part of my work is using a CentOS8 VM on Fusion and that's not gonna work.

I had no choice but to continue using my previous Mac. The M1 Mini has beeing sitting on my desk collecting dust the whole time. I do switch to it once in a while for various browsing activities but the old one would do just fine with those activities.

I'm glad VMware has finally come around. I look forward very much to getting Fusion on M1.
 
Thanks and yes. I have thought of that (and it would be a business expense for me so no big deal). I just feel like the world has gone to 'death by subscription' and I don't want to have so many monthly's for things that I only use here and there.

Subscriptions keep development flowing. The business model of holding off hundred of features and releasing that for £400 every 18 months just doesn't hold anymore. Customers expect software to be always current and features to be available when they are ready, not held back till v2, v3, etc. And then some software is just too mature now, like MS Office, how many will pay Microsoft £350 ever 1-2 years for Office 2021 and 2023 when 2021 already does everything you could ever want?
 
What is the point, VMware? Parallels Desktop 16 already does all of it plus it runs Windows 10. Parallels Desktop 11 also runs Windows 11 with TPM emulation. TPM is required for Windows 11. VMware, you are so behind at this point, you may as well just give up and drop Mac support.
Many people detest Parallels' subscription model, and also the licence per machine model, which vmware is more relaxed on
 
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