News Releases•3 min read

VMware Demonstrates its New Desktop Product for the Apple Mac at Macworld

VMware Demonstrates its New Desktop Product for the Apple Mac at Macworld

Intel-based Macs Can Now Simultaneously Run Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, NetWare and Solaris

SAN FRANCISCO and PALO ALTO, Calif., January 9, 2007 — At Macworld 2007, VMware, Inc., the global leader in software for industry-standard virtualized desktops and servers, will demonstrate the public beta of its new desktop product that enables Intel-based Macs to run x86 operating systems, such as Windows, Linux, NetWare and Solaris, in virtual machines at the same time as Mac OS X.  

The new desktop product for the Apple Mac was introduced during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in August 2006, and the public beta became available free of charge in December 2006 and can be downloaded at www.vmware.com/products/beta/fusion//. The new product for the Mac is expected to be generally available by this summer; pricing will be announced at the time of general availability. 

“With our new desktop product for the Mac, we’ve combined VMware’s advanced virtualization platform with an easy-to-use, native Mac interface, and we have seen tremendous interest in the product since its introduction at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference,” said Srinivas Krishnamurti, director of product and market development at VMware. “Beta customers have been very excited about this product’s ability to fully leverage the Mac’s hardware capabilities—running 64-bit PC applications on Mac OS X, gaining additional performance by allocating a second CPU to virtual machines and accessing all devices, including iSight cameras and any Bluetooth device.”

“My team maintains a vast library of VMware virtual machine images for developing and testing our software products, and because many of the engineers involved are Mac users, the ability to leverage our existing library was a compelling reason to evaluate the product,” said Blake Garner, lab systems engineer at Adobe Systems. “I like the product’s 64-bit support, its simple and clean user interface and its compatibility with our existing virtual machine library. It should allow a lot of our Mac users to make the Mac the only desktop they need because they can now run Windows in a virtual machine. It’s clear after using the public beta that a first-class VMware product for Mac OS X is on the way.”

The new desktop product for the Mac is based on VMware’s robust and advanced virtualization technology, shipping for more than eight years and used by more than four million people today. With the new product, users can:

  • Create and run a wide variety of 32- and 64-bit x86 operating systems on Mac OS X without rebooting and simultaneously run PC applications next to Mac OS X applications
  • Leverage Virtual SMP capabilities to gain additional performance improvements so that on any Mac with dual-core processors, users can assign multiple CPUs to a virtual machine to gain additional performance for CPU-intensive workloads
  • Access physical devices from the virtual machine to read and burn CDs and DVDs, access Bluetooth and USB 2.0 devices such as video cameras, iPods, printers and disks at full speed, view live battery status within the virtual machine by leveraging the Virtual Battery technology and even use devices that do not have drivers for Mac OS X
  • Drag and drop files and folders between Mac OS X and any virtual machine to easily share data between the two environments
  • Leverage compatibility across VMware virtual machines so that existing VMware virtual machines created with the most current VMware products are all cross-compatible, including virtual machines created by VMware Workstation, VMware Server and VMware Infrastructure 3
  • Run any of the 380 virtual appliances for solutions such as security, load balancing, collaboration, databases, development, communications and business applications available from the Virtual Appliance Marketplace (vam.vmware.com); virtual appliances are pre-built, pre-configured and ready-to-run software applications, all packaged within virtual machines that can be run using VMware virtualization products including VMware Player and VMware Server, which are both available for free download at www.vmware.com/download

About VMware, Inc.

VMware, an EMC company (NYSE: EMC), is the global leader in virtual infrastructure software for industry-standard systems. The world's largest companies use VMware solutions to simplify their IT, fully leverage their existing computing investments and respond faster to changing business demands. VMware is based in Palo Alto, California. For more information, visit www.vmware.com or call 650-475-5000.


# # #
 

VMware is a registered trademark or trademark of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.