VMware Communities
Mikero
Community Manager
Community Manager

Fusion's Future

Hi everyone,

As we're winding down the year, planning is well underway for the next big releases of Fusion and Fusion Pro.

With me being new to the role of being responsible for the entirety of the Fusion experience, all the way from initial awareness to buying, using and getting support, I'm working on a multi-year plan of how we're going to take Fusion into the future.

I personally think it would be wrong of me to do this without hearing from our users and the community.  I've always wanted to do right by our users, and I hope that giving you a forum to voice your thoughts underscores our commitment to 'do the right thing'.

The world has been changing since Apple first brought OS X to x86, allowing us to do this amazing thing called Virtualization. But with changing times people are using Fusion for a variety of different reasons that we may not have originally thought of.

So, I'd like to use this thread as a forum to get direct feedback from you on what you think Fusion could do next.

Let's hear about how you use Fusion and what else might help make that experience even better.

Let's hear about what Fusion doesn't do today that would make your lives easier.

Let's hear about what Fusion does that drives you crazy!

Do you deploy Fusion en-masse in the office? What can we do better for this use case? (and did you know about Horizon FLEX??)

Do you build software using Fusion? How can we make that a more productive and joyful experience?

Lastly, I just want to say thank you to all of our users.  It's been a great year for us, and for me personally. I'm immensely proud of what the team here has been able to deliver over the years, and we couldn't be more excited to take things to the next level with you by our side.

Happy Holidays!

-Mike

-
Michael Roy - Product Marketing Engineer: VCF
81 Replies
Woodmeister50
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I am agreement with youCuriosTiger.  Such a carte blanche elimination of experience and knowledge

can only yield at best short term issues, delayed product fixes, and buggy future versions simply due

to the fact the new personnel do not understand the product or the user base.  Such short term problems

will ultimately lead to a diminishing user base, reducing income for the group, meaning further personnel

reductions, leading to even slower fixes and new versions, etc.

Personally, I had seen such moves happen too often lead to no good things coming of it.  Success and

advancements after such moves are quite rare and more often than not result in failure and the end

of a product.

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dl111122
Contributor
Contributor

Can you at least state whether VMware Fusion plans to support Solaris 11?

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alauzon
Contributor
Contributor

I am more than happy with VMWare Fusion's functionality.  However, it lacks low-latency audio.  Please consider adding low-latency virtual audio to a future release.

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ldanielc
Contributor
Contributor

Hi Mike.

I have been a longtime user of Fusion, and my use case is probably different than most.  I have a dual-core i5 iMac (4 cores with hyperthreading) with 32GB RAM, and I run 4 VMs 24x7 on it: CentOS 6, Windows 10 Pro, ESXi 5.1, and ESXi 6.0.  Inside each ESXi instance (each one gets 2 CPUs and 10GB RAM), I run anywhere from 5-10 VMs; obviously these are small instances, mostly Linux and BSD.  Inside of Fusion, I also run various versions of OS X, but not 24x7.

First, I'd like to see different operation in full screen mode, specifically related to the menu bar.  I generally use full screen mode when running an OS X VM, and whenever I move my cursor to the top of the screen, the VMware Fusion menu bar appears too quickly, or it doesn't appear at all.  I'd like a configurable delay, or maybe another way to get to the Fusion menu bar (perhaps something like what Microsoft has done when running the Windows version of Remote Desktop Client in full screen mode), because I frequently hit that menu bar instead of the VM's menu bar, and that can get frustrating.

Second, I'd like to have Unity support for OS X VMs.  I often run an OS X VM to access a different VPN than the one I'm using on my host system, and I'd prefer the VM to not be windowed or full screen.

Third, I'd really like to see Fusion support NFS-hosted VMDKs.  Today I store all of my VMs on my NAS, and I have to use an iSCSI initiator to get a block-level device from my NAS on which I can store my Fusion VMs.  ESXi works perfectly with NFS-hosted VMDKs, so I know that VMware (as a company) has the technology to do this.

Fourth, I too would like to have full support for headless VMs.  As others have stated, I would like the ability to run VMs on boot without forcing a user login.  Also, I would like to be able to run the 4 VMs I run 24x7, without requiring a running Fusion GUI app.  I would also like to be able to access the console of those VMs with VMware Remote Console, in the way that I access the consoles of my ESXi VMs with VMRC.  As others have stated, it would be nice to have the ability to configure a VM's suspend and startup to be coincidental with the Mac's shutdown and boot, in the same way that ESXi can do.

Fifth, I am a huge user of various OSes, and I would love to see full support for OS/2 v1.x and 2.x.  I know that this will never happen, but you asked. Smiley Happy

You have probably (correctly) guessed that I have begun moving my hypervisor usage away from Fusion and toward ESXi because it supports the features I mentioned.  I would rather use Fusion, but today it is missing these important features.

I'm sure I have other thoughts; I will post those when they come to me.

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vmxmr
Expert
Expert

Hi Daniel (?) - Sorry to hijack this thread, but here is a solution to one of your feature requests - automatic startup of virtual machines. I just created this procedure for you and others:

Procedure to Automatically Launch a Virtual Machine at Mac Startup

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vivo67
Contributor
Contributor

I am a developer using virtual machines with Vagrant.

Currently most of my colleagues are using VirtualBox, so I will finally be switching as well.

I do not trust a company that fires the developers who really know their code.

As a developer I know how hard it is to understand code that someone else has written,

no matter how good the documentation.

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Mikero
Community Manager
Community Manager

Thanks for the feedback. We hear you.

One thing to note however is that the only team affected was the UI team.

All core hypervisor, virtual device and platform layer development remains unchanged. This includes graphics, networking, USB devices, and everything that doesn't fall explicitly under 'UI'.

Further, the old UI team is actively transitioning the code knowledge to the new team directly, it's not a matter of 'go read the docs'.

Lastly, many of the key UI developers are still with VMware working on other projects and will be able to share their expertise if the new team requires it in the future.

While we're on the topic... The new team is actually twice as large as the old and more specialized in the areas where we want Fusion to grow. We have gained support for our updated roadmap the past few weeks, and while I can't get into the details yet, we (the product team) are incredibly excited about the direction that we're taking the product in, and that direction is largely drawn with feedback from users like you and everyone else who has chimed in on this thread.

Keep it coming! We're reading everything!

-
Michael Roy - Product Marketing Engineer: VCF
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vmxmr
Expert
Expert

Hey Mike,

Thank you for sharing. I wish you had said this earlier. It would have quelled many rumors and much misinformation that is on the web.

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chetman
Contributor
Contributor

Fusion HAS no future for me. I mean, it might've, but this week I

* foolishly upgraded to 8, only to discover you'd deliberately removed a feature I rely on (split screen support)

* sought and received a refund, which SOUNDS like it went well except...

* ...in upgrading I lost access to my Fusion 7 key, and in requesting the refund I lost my Fusion 8 key.

* Given that I was promised by the support rep on Monday that they'd allow me to activate Fusion 7 with a Fusion 8 key, I'd already removed Fusion 8.

So now it's Thursday, and I still have no access to ANY version of Fusion even though the only refund I got was for the upgrade to 8. It's pretty crappy that you've denied me access to ANY version of your product while you take your sweet time fixing the licensing situation. It's also pretty crappy that, at least twice during this ongoing support situation, I've been outright lied to by your offshore reps, who will clearly promise just about anything to get an irate customer off the phone. (The first was the promise that they'd allow me to reactivate 7 on Monday; I never received a key to do so. The second was today when I was promised a callback resolving the situation before EOB. Obviously, that didn't happen either.)

So, yeah. Not super excited about Fusion or VMWare, so it's "future" for me is very, very murky.

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hello chetman

The thing is that licenses are not uninstalled normally when you upgrade. In fact the license should still be there (and I would actually have expected VMware Fusion 7 to be able to find it)

In any case, the license key is in plain text in a config file on your host.

The following line should display it:

$ cat /Library/Preferences/VMware\ Fusion/license-fusion-70* | grep -i "serial"

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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Kristof_59
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

despite this thread has started some months ago I would like to line up with other users.

I am using Fusion for private use - For me it is great that I can use selected Windows programs under Max OS X (just a side comment: I am also using VMWare Player under Windows to run XP on Windows 7, which is also great for me).

Please continue to support OS X as host OS for Windows - this makes it possible to use MacBook/iMac etc. in the Windows environment. I understand that this support is not for free on your side. It is ok for me to pay for Fusion as a piece of software that gives a real benefit in almost daily use (yes, I understand that there are other virtualization solutions available, but having one consistent user interface on VMWare player and Fusion is something I don't want to miss).

Best Regards,

Kristof_59

ColoradoMarmot
Champion
Champion

So you're switching to a product that's an oh by the way, non-core competency for that vendor, instead of sticking with the one who basically invented the concept.

And you don't think Oracle offshores their development? 

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vivo67
Contributor
Contributor

You are right, Oracle is in no way better.

But I really do not care who invented the concept. That is no decision criteria for me.

And core competency? Yes, but I need a very limited set of features. VirtualBox currently is good enough.

And I thought they had just thrown core (desktop hypervisor) competency out!

The only risk I see is that when Vmware and Parallels give up on the desktop then VirtualBox surely will

cost quite some bucks. Up to now I bought a license every year.

Had I known that the core hypervisor team etc. was not affected,

I would have been much less inclined to switch. But Mikes Message here was the first that I could find.

But as I said above, my colleagues are using VirtualBox, which is sufficient for development.

And since we are using Vagrant, I not only had to pay for Fusion but for the Vagrant plugin as well.

Every year.

So I will wait and see, check the reviews of the next version. Since I am not interested in the

UI part of Fusion, it might still be a solution for me. But laying off 800 people although the numbers

looked good is still a questionable move. And that Oracle does/did the same is no excuse.

I just have to chose which questionable decision I will make. Perhaps xhyve will become a valid contender.

It might be an interesting idea to sell a Non-GUI Vmware Fusion at a more competitive price.

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi Victor,

It might be an interesting idea to sell a Non-GUI Vmware Fusion at a more competitive price.

If you don't need a GUI, you might want to try AppCatalyst:

Introducing AppCatalyst - the desktop hypervisor for developers - Cloud-Native AppsCloud-Native Apps...

It's free, so I guess it might be competitive with VirtualBox Smiley Wink

Note: that you cannot run Fusion and AppCatalyst concurrently at the same time.

Only one of the hypervisors can be running at the same time.

edit: Ohhh.. I never noticed the marketing words that this is the Tech Preview for free, so not sure about what it would cost in the future.

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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vivo67
Contributor
Contributor

Barrie Seed (@BarrieSeed) tweeted at 8:35am - 6 Mar 16:

VMware AppCatalyst dead in the water? No update for 8 months, pity as it did seem worthwhile and free vagrant plugin (https://twitter.com/BarrieSeed/status/706382602836406272?s=17)

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi,

Please ask that question at the correct spot:

VMware AppCatalyst

and maybe ask yourself instead of quoting a random(?) tweet.

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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vivo67
Contributor
Contributor

The topic of AppCatalyst was brought up here by you. Therefore I consider this the right place to point out that it does not seem to be very active.

After looking at

VMwareAppCatalystVMwareCommunities2016-03-29 10-42-29.png

I googled and found the tweet I quoted which mirrored my impression very well.

So it was not random


I do not know why I feel I have to defend myself ...

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi Victor,

The reason I asked to go post the question at the AppCatalyst forum because that's where you'll find VMware employees who can answer the specific question.

AFAIK it's not dead in the water and it's part of the photon workflow which is under active development ( VMware® Open Source Software )

I answered with AppCatalyst because it was the answer to your question.

Please do not read more into it and take this thread further off topic.

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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ExEmployee
Contributor
Contributor

Hmmmm...interesting how replies to this thread are mysteriously missing.

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vmxmr
Expert
Expert

Hmmmm...interesting how replies to this thread are mysteriously missing.

One of my replies went missing from this thread, too. I had retained a local copy, so I posted it again and it stayed. I gave VMware the benefit of the doubt and assumed it was a technical issue with the forums, not deliberate censoring of posts. I still think that, until proven otherwise. It seemed to coincide with a forum service outage. I noticed another brief forum service outage recently. Could it be related? I have posted critical comments at other times that did not go missing. My comments can get pretty caustic at times.


Can be more descriptive about what you posted that went missing? I suggest you try again - let's see if it sticks.

"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence." (Hanlon's razor)

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