Virtualization on the cheap: VMWare Fusion only $40 at Amazon

I've been pretty happy with Parallels on my MacBook Pro, which has offered me the ability to run Ubuntu, Windows XP and Windows Vista all on a single machine for the past year. There's a few little niggles, but by-and-large, 99% of what I need an alternate OS to do on my Mac is doable through Parallels. Still, I tried VMWare Fusion last year and came away equally impressed. I passed on it at the time because a license was over $70 and I just didn't see $70 worth of benefit when I had already had a Parallels license.

Last night, I noticed on MacUser that VMWware Fusion was $20 off at Amazon, which brought the price down to $59.99 from the $79.99 list price. On top of that is a $20 mail-in rebate which gets the software for $39.99, and that's with free shipping. Hmm... I'm thinking it's now worth having an alternative, especially since I'm running the older version of Parallels. If you're looking for a virtualization deal for your Mac, feel free to join me. I won't start any debate of Parallels vs. Fusion; I'll let you do that in comments as I'm sure there's a number of differing opinions on the topic.

Comments

[GoodThings2Life]

Now that Fusion is out, Apple has had to alter their virtualization policy for their own OS as well, which means that those of us running PC's can virtualize Mac OS.

For those who are interested, you can find the procedure to make it happen here:
http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Vmware_how_to

I plan on giving this a try in the next month or so for use in our customer service and development departments where I work.

[Mike Whalen]

Thanks for this, Kevin! I have been demoing it on my MacBook and love it. I'm running through some books on Windows Server and decided to buy it, but thought I was going to have to purchase at $100+. This is awesome.

[Devon]

Virtual Box http://www.virtualbox.org/ is also woth trying, and best of all it's free!

[DS]

Worth it to have a legit copy. Thanks for the heads up. I might even buy it through your referral link ;) .

[Kevin C. Tofel]

Glad to help with the heads up to all. If you do purchase it, we get nothing for the purchase. I believe in fully disclosing affiliate links so if there's no mention of it, I didn't use it. But thanks for the thought! :)

[Peter Kazanjy]

Kevin,

Thanks for the shoutout!

Actually, the VMware Fusion team is currently running a "My Switch to VMware Fusion" video contest for users who have switched to VMware Fusion for Windows on their Mac.

Grand prize is a MacBook Air, and every video submitter gets a VMware Fusion t-shirt.

We invite 'Fusion switchers' to check it out: www.vmware.com/switchtofusion

And we invite non-Fusion users to consider the switch. VMware Fusion is free to try for 30 days, fully featured.

-Pete Kazanjy
VMware Fusion Product Marketing

[Jon M]

I have run VMWare Mac Fusion on my MacBook Pro 17 for almost 2 years and I love it. I especially loved Mac Fusion back then because while it was BETA, it worked better than Parallels which wasn't beta. Ever since then I purchased Mac Fusion when it went final and came out retail. I find that it was (and still is) more robust than Parallels. I highly recommend the switch!