Another horse is ahead in the horse race – time to hop on it

[mglish]

I've been very frustrated at Fusion since Snow Leopard. I've resisted the temptation to switch to the competition because a) I started with Parallels and moved to Fusion because of Parallels' shortcomings and didn't trust it anymore and b) I assumed that the leader in VM technology would fix its shortcomings quickly. But I have been using the beta version and have gotten no benefits. None of the issues I experienced in 3.0 were better in the beta.

I've read a number of very empirical, very dispassionate reviews that show that Parallels is better than Fusion in nearly every worthwhile area, especially video. Video is the area that bothers me – Fusion is jumpy in Unity mode and windows randomly maximize when you move them. It is slow, slow slow. So I tried the Parallels trial and I must say I'm impressed. The conversion of the Fusion VM to the Parallels VM appears to be flawless. The performance is snappy. The Windows Performance Index is much better.

I'm writing this mostly for any Fusion employees who might be watching the Forum. The empirical data is all about speed – Fusion is a dog compared to Parallels. Both products create a decent VM rendering of Windows. After that, a user wants reliability and speed. I use Windows in a corporate environment where I need to have my Windows experience be on par with a "real" HP or Dell. I'm talking about using MS Office and IE, etc. I'm not a kid playing games.

Everyone knows that software is a horse race. One company has the faster product today and it is eclipsed by the competitor's faster product tomorrow. Then the lead changes again. What makes me unhappy is that prior to 3.0, Fusion claimed some kind of unofficial support for Snow Leopard but it really was terrible – but gave no heads up to users that 3.0 was about to be released. Finally it was released and many problems were resolved, but it was very slow compared to what I was used to with Leopard and 2.x.

Just as I was getting discouraged with 3.0, the beta came out. I was hopeful that we would see a speed burst. Nope. I don't know how long the beta has been out, but it seems like forever with no new release or even a new build. How long are people supposed to wait? Well today I figured out I don't need to wait.

This is a consumer product that may not make a ton of money for VMware. Maybe the best and brightest VMware engineers are on the commercial products. My defection won't move the needle at all. I just didn't want to go quietly. VMware, I'm surprised you're willing to be in second place.

Mike

[Kenneth868]

Completely agree with you. As technology and strategic consultant, my team have

revised our advice on virtualization solution specially from VMware as their desktop

virtualization product (workstation and fusion) have suffer different levels of

disappointment.

[jwhouston]

I have to agree also. I'm a physician that uses a Mac but needs a PC to run a proprietary program that is graphics intensive. I've assisted a couple of my partners in transitioning to Mac and my current recommendation has been for them to use Parallels because of the current speed advantage. I had also advised them that Fusion would likely leapfrog Parallels at some point but I've seen no signs of that. It would be nice to see at least a blog update letting us know what's in the works for the next version. I just purchased a new MacBook Pro with the i7 processor and am having problems migrating my virtual machine. Parallels on my partners machines is clearly faster so I'm considering using my migration issues as the motivation to switch to Parallels since it looks like I'll have to do a full reinstall either way.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Try the 3.1 beta (or wait for 3.1 production which - no inside knowledge - is probably approaching). Massive improvements, particularly in graphics performance.

[mglish]

I was probably a bit too long-winded and some of my points were probably easy to miss. I did try the 3.1 on the first day and it cured none of my earlier issues and graphics performance was no better. My graphics test is to drag a Windows window across the screen in Unity mode. It should be smooth. My windows jerk along like an inchworm. The window randomly will maximize. Sometimes the windows freeze.

My other complaint is that the beta has been the same load since day 1. I've given lots of feedback and VMware engineers have worked with me to get diagnostic data. Yet I have no idea when the official release will be coming out.

I'm tired of waiting.

Mike

[ColoradoMarmot]

What graphics hardware are you running? I saw a full 2 point jump in my Win7 experience scores with 3.1.

[dp_fusion]

I've had no problems to report about 3.1 that weren't there in 3.0.2, but performance is definitely better. I don't expect performance to be better in a beta release as I expect it's stuffed with debug code even if you disable debug. In particular, starting and stopping Windows is noticably faster not that I do it all that often, but it was a problem.

One thing I've noted is that Win7 in 3.01 Beta is a memory hog on my first-gen MacBook Pro. Can't justify replacing it because it's working so well, but I do envy those who are just now getting a first MBP and taking home the i7 chip. And I just bought a Mac Mini Server edition with the older chips