Upgrade price from Fusion 3 to 4 or just the discount available

[eldrik]

Hi,  is there an upgarde program for end users currently running Fusion 3 available?  Best regards, Eldrik

[MDiamond]

> I just paid for version 3 in the beginning of this year.

Version 3 has been out since 2009. Noone is forcing you to upgrade to Fusion 4 in the same year that you upgraded to version 3. Just wait a year like you did last time. (And as a bonus, they'll have worked out the bugs by then.)

And if paying for upgrades only a year apart bothers you, then switching to Parallels is the last thing you should do:

  Version 4: Nov 2008

  Version 5: Nov 2009

  Version 6: Sep 2010

  Version 7: Sep 2011

As far as I can tell, all of these were paid upgrades. (Corrections welcome.)

Fusion:

  Version 2 (FREE): Sep 2008

  Version 3: Oct 2009

  Version 4: Sep 2011

I believe Parallel's upgrade price was generally $30 each time, so it comes out ~$30-40 more than Fusion was for the same period. So the real question to ask is, is Parallels worth paying more for?

I'm not sure if Fusion v4.0 is worth $50 to upgrade to just yet, given that 3.1.3 is still working well for me. So I'll probably just wait for now and pay the $50 next year, around when Parallels is charging you for version 9. 🙂 (And yes, I'll probably evalate Parallels at some point. It might just be worth the extra money.)

[tonydenson]

As an early Parallels user but then a long time VM Fusion user until now, my take on this is as follows. I will probably switch back to Parallels (which I have been thinking about doing for a while now for technical reasons) simply because with no upgrade price there is no lock in to Fusion. If I decide in a year's time Parallels was not so good after all then to come back to Fusion won't cost me any more since I will just buy the next version again at full price which is what I would have had to do anyway if I stick with Fusion now. So I save $20 and get the chance to go back to Parallels with nothing lost if I come back again. However, and the big however is, because of the Parallels policy of dripfeeding new more frequent versions with smaller upgrade fees I will probably feel somewhat locked in to Parallels and never come back again.

IMHO the Fusion policy is commercial suicide, but then who am I to say, I am just a customer about to jump ship !

[maroo69]

I think that today could be a good moment to test parallels,

that's the point, I never though to use parallels, but this not care of existig customers, make me think.

[jimfarley]

FWIW, I use both Parallels and Fusion, and I've upgraded both over the past 18 months.  I prefer Parallels for their Windows support (better Mac integration overall than Fusion), Fusion for their Linux support (which was lacking in Parallels for quite a while).

This lack of a Fusion upgrade path will cause me to stop upgrading Fusion.  Parallels has closed the Linux support gap, so I'll stick with Fusion 3.1.3 for a bit and jump to Parallels for everything as soon as some Ubuntu release comes out that 3.1.3 doesn't support.

[daj]

I finally got the time to review Parallels and Fusion.  My thoughts are here.. http://www.theonlycog.com/post/review-fusion-or-parallels/

[SpikeeFix]

Yep, another satisfied VMWare user here who is ready to jump ship.  If it had been $30 for upgrade I wouldn't have looked around, but now I'm outta here.

[ashram99]

+1 switched to Parallels.

I've bought Fusion version 1-3, but only really started really using it with version 3, when I got my MBP last year (the MB I had simply wasn't powerful enough for Windows dev in VM, so used Boot Camp).  I've got to say that I've been totally frustrated with it.

The latest being an "invisible full screen" Unity.  What happens is that whenever any of the Windows apps are active, everything comes to the front, as if it was full screen.  I probably could deal with this, but whenever there is any activity (say an email notification in Outlook), it all comes to the front.  The only way I found to solve this was to uninstall VmWare Tools and reinstall it (having to reboot).  However, as soon as I suspend and resume, the issue comes back.

I've switched to Parallels ($30 upgrade making for a much easier choice) and although it has it's own issues, they're minor compared to the issues I've dealt with Fusion for more than a year and a half.

[SpikeeFix]

If you don't mind answering, what are the issues you've run into with Parallels?

[reddle]

Well it looks like I've joined the growing flood of users leaving fusion behind after being a loyal vmware customer since the early days on various platforms and fusion since version 2.0.  After moving from 2.0 to 3.0 I have never been happy, degraded VM performance, buggy, and at times the Mac grinding to a halt.  Later versions of 3.x improved a little but still almost unusable and judging by the forum posts I was not aloan, I waited for a decent point release but it never came and now we have 4.x as a paid upgrade with no discount for existing users, how the hell can they expect users to pay for an upgrade when they don't fix the previous release and leave users hanging.

Now reading the latest forum posts it looks like 4.x is just as bad if not worse than 3.x, well this is one user that is not prepared to go through the 3.x fiasco all over again waiting for a point release that never arrives just to be stung yet again for another version pay grab.  I made the choice to try the Paralells cross upgrade promotion, why the hell did I wait so long?  Parallels was so easy to move to, my Windows 7 and Microtik development VM's migrated without a hitch and what a differance, the VM's run like they are on there own hardware, the Macbook doesn't even know it has VM's running on it and runs at full speed once the VM has loaded and so far no obvious bugs and the abilty to access the VM and my Macbook from an iPad is awesome.

I didn't want to change platforms but the combination of buggy software, no fixes and then being stung for an version upgrade in the hope of bug fixes that should have been provided in a point release is beyond a joke.

I think the Fusion guys need to get their act together because its just to easy and too cheap to make the switch, user are not going to put up with poor software and being ripped off when there are alternatives that run rings round Fusion!

[Dansterpower]

Goodbye VM Ware -- I was a user of Versions 1, 2 and 3 but I am done with your lack of upgrade policy for loyal users.

Let's see, I can spend $49 to upgrade from Fusion 3 or I can jump ship to Parallels for $29 and get a superior product based on all the reviews.

You just lost a loyal customer and an opinion leader in among my clients and peers.

[kintekobo]

So it looks like VMWare are the Charlie Sheen of Software companies eh? "F*ck you Dude! I've got your money"

Another long time user who is going over to Parallels. So long VMWare.:smileygrin:

[weechong]

And so myself, a long time VMware user (since version 1), moved to Parallels as well. However, I must say the experience is not entirely pleasant and would caution the people here that if you're migrating to Parallel soley because of pricing, then you're in for a surprise.

1. Parallel competitive pricing is $39.99, not $29.

2. Parallel does not offer multiple installations - just 1 copy, 1 installation.

3. Parallel does not offer unlimited download. After 30 days, you'll need to pay to redownload the software.

VMware still treats its customers better than Parallel does.

That being said. One needs to consider all things in totality. I moved to Parallel because it offer deeper integration into OSX and performs better than VMware. More importantly, it uses less disk space; which is important when one is using flash drives. I must thank VMware for if not because of their pricing, I would not have bothered to evaluate Parallel.

Sadly, VMware has failed to appreciate that product to product comparison, they would have been able to retain (or gain) their customers if they have priced it fairly.

[xofer]

weechong wrote:

3. Parallel does not offer unlimited download. After 30 days, you'll need to pay to redownload the software.

What 30 days?

You can download the Parallels "trial" any time. You just need to enter your registration key to make it "full". It has always been like this.

[Dawda]

weechong,

4 reasons to upgrade.

1 Parallels Desktop competitive pricing WAS 29 and has been som times before.

2 The number of simultaniout installations i believe is 3, as long as you own those and never use but one instance at a time.

You can however install it on how many computers you want as long as you uninstall it from another device first.

3 the number of downloads is infinite if you as the guy before me said. Download the trial and then enter your key.

4 you must be an emplyee of VMware.

[zorzal]

Well, let's not stay where we are not wanted! Let's move to Parallels! Parallels is *consistently* getting evaluated as a better product by serious reviewers, because of better native Mac supprt, better graphics support, better USB drive support, etc. That alone makes it preferrable: now add that in order to just continue to use Fusion you have to pay more than you have to pay to get the superior Parallels... Uhhh?

Sayonara VMWare, and your dreams of becoming the next Microsoft