VMware Launches Third Generation of Award-Winning Desktop Virtualization Software

Users can run multiple OSes -- now including Windows XP -- on a single PC

PALO ALTO, Calif., November 5, 2001 — VMware, Inc., the global leader in virtualization software for Intel computers, today announced general availability of VMware(tm) Workstation 3.0, the latest generation of its award-winning desktop software for technical professionals. Workstation 3.0 delivers significant usability and performance enhancements over previous releases, dramatically expanding the utility and value of virtual computing across the entire enterprise. VMware Workstation 3.0 is available today at VMware's online store.

VMware Workstation enables multiple operating systems to run on physical computers in secure, transportable, and high-performance virtual machines. As a result, technical professionals spend more time being productive and less time configuring hardware, installing software, rebooting, or reconfiguring systems. Today's release concludes an enormously successful beta program, with more than 130,000 beta users.

"We are seeing huge interest for this product, with an increasing number of volume sales at leading enterprises," said Diane Greene, co-founder, president, and CEO of VMware. "The latest enhancements bring the benefits of virtual computing to an even broader range of users, from the online help desk to the software development lab to the sales-rep laptop."

Customer acceptance

Some of the world's most advanced technology companies are already using VMware Workstation, including BEA Systems, Inc., Dell IT (UK), the Internal Revenue Service, Lotus Development Corporation, NetIQ, Rational Software, Symantec Corp., Vignette Corp., and VERITAS Software Corporation.

"VMware has saved us time installing systems, configuring systems, and preserving clean images," said Larry Phillips, Director of Engineering at NetIQ. "We've been a customer of VMware for two years, and we are finding great success with VMware Workstation 3.0."

VMware also has a line of server products designed to enable businesses to logically partition their server resources for server consolidation, capacity planning, and rapid provisioning. The result is better server utilization while ensuring application performance.

"Having a product line that spans the server, the desktop, and the laptop makes for a very strong solution set in the enterprise," said Vernon Turner, Group Vice President, IDC. "Provisioning resources across the industry-standard computer line may have just gotten significantly easier."

Powerful Software for the Enterprise

With VMware Workstation:

Software developers can easily develop and test on multiple different operating systems or versions of operating systems. Developers can explore new applications, tools, and operating systems within virtual machines without risking damage to their production development environment.
Software test and quality assurance engineers can test software on large numbers of different operating systems and configurations.
Help desk and technical support professionals can better support customers by using virtual machines configured with the same operating systems and applications software as their customers.
Computer based training organizations can create courseware within virtual machines and distribute it to training classrooms. Installing the class material is now as simple as copying a few files to a desktop computer.
Sales and marketing professionals can demonstrate software running within virtual machines, making demonstrations easier to produce and distribute, easier to install, more reliable to run, and more convincing.

Workstation 3.0 provides support for the latest operating systems, including Microsoft Windows XP and the latest Linux distributions, supports additional peripheral devices, and provides significant enhancements in networking and better overall performance. On Microsoft Windows host operating systems, Workstation 3.0 provides a completely new Windows-style user interface with significantly improved ease of use. VMware Workstation 3.0 is available in two versions, one for systems running Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, or Windows XP, and one for systems running Linux. Both versions support a wide range of guest operating systems running in virtual machines.

Feature Packed Release

Among the many enhancements in VMware Workstation 3.0 are: host and guest OS support for Microsoft Windows XP Professional and Home Edition; USB device support; DVD-ROM support; CD-ROM ISO image support; generic SCSI device support (makes devices available directly to the guest OS); large virtual disk support (now up to 128 GB per IDE virtual disk and 256 GB per SCSI virtual disk); improved CPU, networking, disk, and interactive performance; completely new Windows-style user interface (Windows host version); built-in NAT (Network Address Translation) for easy connection to networks; more flexible and easier to configure virtual networking; improved support for laptops.

In addition, as a Microsoft OEM, VMware will deliver Guest OS Kits with Windows operating systems prepackaged and ready to run in VMware Workstation virtual machines. This will enable users to obtain Windows operating systems unbundled from hardware and to more quickly install them in virtual machines.

Industry recognition

Numerous publications have honored VMware products, including Computerworld, Infoworld, PC Magazine, PC Magazin (Germany), Software Development Magazine, Linux Magazine, Winmag.com, Windows Forest (Japan), and Australian Personal Computer. In a recent review, CNET recommended VMware Workstation above competing solutions for running multiple operating systems and their applications on PCs.

Pricing

$US 299 for the electronic version.
$US 329 for boxed version.

About VMware

VMware, Inc. virtualizes computing, dramatically reducing the cost and complexity of delivering enterprise services. The VMware virtualization layer turns your physical computers into a pool of logical computing resources. The resources can then be dynamically allocated to any operating system or application at your choice of granularity. As a result, our customers can use our software to consolidate servers and manage server capacity, rapidly provision, streamline application deployment, guarantee service levels, and speed development and testing. VMware was founded in 1998 and we have more than 750,000 registered users internationally. We're based in Palo Alto, California and we're on the Web at www.vmware.com.

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(c)2001 vmware, inc. all rights reserved. vmware and the vmware boxes logo are trademarks of vmware, inc. microsoft, windows, and windows nt are registered trademarks of microsoft corporation. linux is a registered trademark of linus torvalds. all other trademarks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.