Parallels or VMware?
At first it appears to be a tough choice. How does one decide between both virtualization softwares?
AppleInsider offers the following recommendation:
Using a MacBook, MacBook Pro, and a Mac Pro tower as its comparison systems, MacTech finds that Parallels Desktop is generally faster than VMware Fusion in common networking and office tasks when using Windows XP. When switching to Vista, however, Fusion handles the performance hit more gracefully and drops by an average of 32 percent across the three systems versus a steeper 85 percent for Parallels.Surprisingly, either can be slightly faster than running Windows through the native Boot Camp mode for some of these particular tasks, the publication says. Parallels earns additional recommendations for those who depend on a tight link between Mac OS X and Windows, though VMware’s solution may be better for Windows software that depends on multiple cores.
The funny thing is: I’ve been running less and less Windows applications ever since I switched to a Mac. I admit that Boot Camp was the tipping point for me to switch. Boot Camp provided me a parachute in case I needed to run Windows. But I found myself using it very infrequent. Now that I have upgraded to Leopard, I have even delayed installing Boot Camp simply out of pure laziness.
December 23 2007 08:25 am | Microsoft and Software
