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There's more than 50 new features in the latest version of VMware (NYSE: VMW) Fusion -- an application that allows Windows and OS X to run together in a virtual environment on a Mac -- but the one that has users raving is the big boost in performance.
"I installed VMWare Fusion 3.0 just a few days ago," Leon Kotovich, president and CEO of AgileSequent told MacNewsWorld. "The upgrade from VMware 2.0.5 was flawless. Performance of Win XP Pro SP3 virtual machine is noticeably faster."
"The speed improvement is absolutely noticeable," added Wilmar Boer, owner of Image33, of Amersfoort, Netherlands.
In the early days of virtualization, computer jocks were forced to choose between operating systems on bootup. That approach has been kicked aside today by virtualization application writers.
When Choice Is Bad
"Fusion is designed to make it as easy as possible to run Windows apps on your Mac without having to choose between operating systems," Pat Lee, VMware's personal desktop products director, told MacNewsWorld.
"With VMware Fusion 3.0," he continued, "we've actually made it much easier, much better, to give you the complete, ultimate Windows experience on a Mac at the same time you're running OS X."
"That's really critical to success 
for a product like this," he added, "because people don't want to have to choose. They don't want to reboot their machines to run Outlook or Internet Explorer. They need to run Windows apps at the same time as their Mac apps."
He argued that virtualization's seamless interoperability can contribute to broader acceptance of the Mac in the corporate environment.
"More and more people are bringing their Macs to work," he explained. "They may need to run Excel for Windows or custom applications that only run on Windows. The ability to run Windows applications that you care about at the same time as your Mac applications makes it even easier to bring the Mac into the enterprise."
Optimized for Snow Leopard
A key contributor to the improved performance of Fusion 3.0 is that it's been built from the ground up to work with Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) latest OS X release, Snow Leopard. "We've leveraged the 64-bit capabilities of Snow Leopard with a brand new 64-bit native engine so it takes advantage of all the changes Apple made in its new 64-bit kernel for more reliability and better performance," Lee observed.
In addition, he said, the new Fusion has been optimized to take advantage of Apple's improvements in disk and graphics performance.
One of the biggest headaches about buying a new computer is getting the stuff on the old computer to run on the new one. Apple has done a laudable job of making that process as painless as possible. VMware has taken a page from Apple's book with the new Fusion.
Migration Without the Migraine
The program has a "Migration Assistant for Windows," which VMware claims is two times faster than other "Switch to Mac" solutions. An entire PC -- applications, files, documents and settings -- can be moved to a Mac running Fusion via Ethernet, Firewire or WiFi.
With the release of Windows 7, people are wondering whether they should buy a new PC or go to a Mac, Lee maintained. Easy migration may remove the resistance some PC users may have to moving to a Mac.
The migration uses Apple's Bonjour technology to find a PC on a network and pair machines together. "It will suck an entire PC over a network into a virtual machine on a Mac," Lee declared. "It's super fast and makes it as easy as possible to bring that PC to your Mac."
Although transfer rates will vary depending on hardware and network configurations, Lee said that if the Mac and PC are connected to a network via Ethernet cable, transfer rates can reach 1GB per minute.
VMware Fusion 3.0 has a retail price of US$79.99. Users of prior versions of the program can upgrade to the new edition for $39.99.
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