On the VMware homepage a new banner appeared right today, before Apple WWDC conference starts.
It’s linked to a sign up page to stay informed about availability of a new virtualization product for Mac OS later this year.
From description it’s possible to understand it’s Workstation and not just Player (like someone supposed), since VMware advertises the possibility to create new virtual machines.
Some features are notable:
- platform interoperability (create a new VM on Mac OS and use it on Windows or Linux, and vice versa)
- product interoperability (create a new VM on Workstation for Mac OS and run it on Player for Windows or ESX Server on bare metal)
- host-guest OSes drag and drop (move or copu a file from Mac OS inside the virtual machine simply dragging it, and vice versa)
Update: The VMware official announcement doesn’t provide a name for the new product:
VMware, Inc., the global leader in software for industry-standard virtualized desktops and servers, today announced a new product that will enable Intel-based Macs to run x86 operating systems, such as Windows, Linux, NetWare and Solaris, in virtual machines at the same time as Mac OS X…
but a new post on the corporate blog, The Console, from Srinivas Krishnamurti, Director of Developer Products and Market Development, provides details about other features:
Since most Macs now have Intel’s Duo with two cores, we added Virtual SMP capabilities so that you can assign more than a single CPU to any virtual machine to gain additional performance.
One of the cool things that I like about my Apple (albeit an older one with PowerPC chip) is the simplicity of doing any multi-media work. I can record movies or use iChat quite easily without the need to buy additional software. We wanted to make sure you have access to all those devices from your virtual machine as well so we spent a lot of time on making sure devices work well. You can use USB 2 devices like video cameras, etc…