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VMWare Fusion

VMware Contest: Make A ‘Switch To Fusion’ Video and Win A MacBook Air

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We’re not sure what to think of VMware Team Fusion’ latest contest. If you upload a one-minute video about your experience in switching to VMware Fusion in order to run Windows on your Mac, or you write a blog post about it, you can win a set of prizes ranging from t-shirts, bumper stickers and an iPod Touch to a MacBook Air.

MacBook Air

On itself, it’s just a nice, harmless marketing campaign to increase awareness about VMware Fusion on video sharing sites and gain extra backlinks for obvious reasons (might have something to do with the increasing pressure from competitors on VMware, aptly written out on bMighty). But we’d be surprised if tons of users go out of their way to create free marketing material for the company, even if the prizes (at least, the Apple products) are bound to spark interest here and there. It just seems it a bit too opportunistic, and they’re putting in an extra threshold by asking contestants to go through a bunch of instructions in a PDF file.

How about you, would you enter a contest to help VMware in getting more awareness for its desktop virtualization solutions?

Virtualization and Brain Fitness Don’t Mix

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Entrepreneur, investor and Open Source pioneer Brian Berliner (whose blog is a must-subscribe, by the way) discovered that not all applications run on virtual machines. After winning a Posit Science Brain Fitness Program Classic, Brian found out that besides having an unnecessary long name, the program doesn’t run on VMware Fusion, which he installed on his Mac computer.

Anyone have a good answer to his question about why some developers forbid running apps on virtual machines? What’s the difference anyway?

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Update: Brian received a comment from a Posit Science rep who lets us know the program runs under Boot Camp and Parallels, and that they’re expecting to release a Mac version by the end of the year.

Excellent example of how companies should treat customers who use blog and social networks to voice their opinions!

Also, check out the comment from Joe on this post, who gave a lengthy and most likely completely correct answer to the technical side of the matter.

Video: Demo from Tommy Armstrong, Product Marketing Manager Enterprise Desktop with VMware (VMworld Europe 2008)

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The interview below is part of our Virtualization Video Series, a recurring theme we want to implement on Virtualization.com featuring interviews with key players from the industry, event reports, etc.

This interview was recorded at VMWorld Europe 2008 in Cannes, France, and features a demo by Tommy Armstrong, Product Marketing Manager Enterprise Desktop with VMware.

DivX HD 1280×720 3.5mbit/s: Play (pop-up)
WMV HD 1280×720 3.5mbit/s: Play (pop-up)

Flash versions: Blip (embedded below), Dailymotion, Myspace, Putfile, Revver, Sevenload, Vimeo, Youtube

Interviewer: Tarry Singh
Video blogger: Charbax

Tech Data & VMWare Take Their Partnership To A New Level

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virtualization-techdata.pngTech Data has announced it will start selling VMWare’s desktop and data center virtualization solutions, in addition to its existing offer including virtualization solutions from Virtual Iron, Parallels, and Citrix’s XenServer (ex-XenSource).

Tech Data previously worked with VMware only through OEM agreements with HP and IBM. As of now, it can separately sell the desktop and data center virtualization solutions including VMware Infrastructure suite, VMware VirtualCenter, VMware Capacity Planner, VMware Lab Manager, VMware Workstation, VMware ACE, VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and VMware Fusion.

Senior VP and General Manager of Tech Data Advanced Infrastructure Solutions Pete Peterson got his first official certification and thus became one of 200 TD employees who can call himself a VMWare Sales Professional (VSP).

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VMware will fall under Peterson’s Advanced Infrastructure Solutions division. In addition to 200 VSPs, Tech Data also has 10 VMware Certified Professionals (VCP) and hopes to double both numbers in the next 90 days, Peterson said.

“We’re really excited about this new partnership. They’re a $1.3 billion software virtualization company. Clearly, they are the market leader in this space. Virtualization is a huge opportunity for most IT shops today and a focus for our resellers,” Peterson said. “They say 5 percent of all servers globally that have virtualization software on them. Our goal is to make sure when we include it when we initially sell servers, but there’s also a huge install base that we have an opportunity to sell into as well.”

Tech Data joins Avnet, Arrow Electronics, Ingram Micro Inc. and Lifeboat Distribution as VMware distributors in the U.S.

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Company Index: VMWare

[Source: ChannelWeb]

VMWare’s Newest Blog: Virtual Reality

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VMWare just announced that it’s adding a new blog on Virtual Reality to its blog network . In its debut post, Mike DiPetrillo touts about the 4 reasons why he switched to VMWare Fusion (other than being a VMWare employee). Here goes the list:

1) Stability. At the core of Fusion is the same engine we’ve been shipping with VMware Workstation since 1998. It’s in its 6th generation and just plain works. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve crashed my machine while running Parallels. For example, here’s a neat trick. Go start up your Windows XP VM in Parallels. Run something that uses a lot of CPU. For me that’s usually running MS Flight Sim. Now, go and suspend the VM. BAM! Crashes every time on several different machines. I’ve got 5 other tests I’ll blog on in the future where Parallels just crashes with simple tasks.

2) Battery Life. Even at idle, Parallels still uses about 15 – 20% of the CPU on my Macbook Pro. My battery only lasts about 1 1/2 hours on the road. Ouch! With Fusion it seems to run much cooler – about 0.5% of the CPU. My battery agrees and usually lasts about 4 hours on a single charge.

3) USB just works. Before switching to the Mac I had a HP Scanjet 7800. Great scanner. When I switched to the Mac and ran Parallels I couldn’t see or use the scanner anymore. There were no drivers for the Mac so I had to go to my really old Epson single sheet scanner I had laying around. Urggh. In comes Fusion to save the day. Right away Windows in a Fusion VM recognized the scanner and I became a much happier person (my wife would agree).

4) Performance. According to the CNET Crave Tests we really perform well. I tend to agree with that. I haven’t done any official benchmarks just yet but things are snappier with Fusion. Just do a search for “vmware fusion performance” and you’ll get several other opinions on the matter which pretty much agree that Fusion is faster.