Has the day actually arrived? In all my recent geek letters to Santa, my computing wish list included running OS X (preferably on a fast RISC chip - we can dream, right?) while using Windows in a fully native virtualized environment. It appears that my wish is coming true (and proving that yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus).
Talk about Parallels – the new “VMware for OS X” app – has been brewing for a few days but reached critical mass as our forum members have hammered out its benefits… and rough edges. (Don’t miss our upcoming article this weekend why you haven’t read about it on the blog yet! It’s a great, although highly annoying for the author, story about the woes of PC support.)
According to the Parallels website,
Parallels Workstation is a hardware emulation virtualization solution. This stable, trusted technology maps the host computer’s hardware resources directly to each virtual PC’s resources, allowing each virtual machine to operate identically to a stand-alone computer. Parallels Workstation’s sophisticated virtual machine engine enables each virtual machine to work with its own processor, RAM, floppy and CD drives, I/O devices, and hard disk – everything a physical computer contains.
Parallels Workstation 2.0 is the first desktop virtualization solution to include a lightweight hypervisor, a mature technology originally developed in the 1960s to maximize the power of large mainframes. Hypervisor technology dramatically improves virtual machine stability, security and performance by using a thin layer of software, inserted between the machine’s hardware and the primary operating system, to directly control some of the host machine’s hardware profiles and resources. It not only makes Parallels Workstation-powered virtual machines secure, stable and efficient, but also empowers users to immediately realize the benefits associated with Intel VT hardware virtualization architecture.
The only downsides? 1) It’s a beta and 2) the full version will set you back $49.99. The beta is free.
Forum users who have been checking it out have said that the beta represents just about everything they’d ever wanted in a Mac – OS X with the option to run Windows in real time. There are still a few technical issues such as driver sluggishness and huge RAM usage, but reports are generally positive.
So we have to ask – have we reached the best of both worlds? The ability to use Windows (generally believed to be the most annoying but universal OS) and OS X (generally believed to be unbelievable) at the same time represents a huge shift for the computing industry.
On the one hand this development, when practical, means that there are no longer excuses for not buying a Mac on the grounds of compatibility. However, there is always the chance that software developers – most likely the small time shops – will finally be able to use the “Oh, Mac users can just use the Windows version virtually” excuse for ignoring Mac users.
What say you? In the opinion of this writer, the days in which we’re living right now are the most formative the computing industry has seen since the 1980’s. The lines between PC and Mac were initially blurred with the Intel transition and have continued to disappear as the barriers to running both operating systems have disappeared. Did you ever think you'd see the Apple website stating "Windows running on a Mac is like Windows running on a PC?"
What will be the historical shockwaves, if there are any, of these new announcements? Are we seeing the birth of the ultimate computer?
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