vmwarez.com
           -Where Virtualization is a Reality!

Looks like they've added a lot of new features, fixed a lot of bugs and have quite a bit new in the way of hardware support. While this would have seemed like tight competition for VMware a month ago, since the beta release of the free VMware Server product, this pales. It is still pretty cool software and is helping to get virtualization into the mainstream IT world.

Click here to read about it on their site and to download the beta.

New Features:

• A completely new, visually stunning user interface.


• Better virtual machine performance, stability and isolation.


• “Suspend and resume” functionality lets you instantly suspend a virtual machine’s state and resume it at a later time without having to completely shut down and start up a guest operating system.


• Support for Physical Address Extension (PAE) allows Workstation 2.1 to run on PAE-enabled primary OSes with up to 4GB of RAM.


• An improved, redesigned Parallels Tools package for Windows that provides useful add-on features that let each user customize their Parallels Workstation experience. New tools include guest/host time synchronization and complete support for normal video modes in Windows 95, 98 and Me.

Stronger Hardware Support

• USB Support enables you to access a wide range of popular USB devices directly in virtual machines.


• Wireless networking support in Windows frees users from network cables. Now, you can connect virtual machines to the internet via any WiFi connection.


• Improved sound support and sound recording feature. Now you can work with your favorite programs which require microphone or line in inside Parallels.


• Stronger support for Intel VT® technology that improves the speed, performance and stability of virtual machines running on VT-powered computers.


• Virtual processor supports more features and improves performance of a modern operating systems in virtual machines.


• Better programmable interval timer (PIT) support: extends legacy OSes and legacy applications support.

Broader OS Support:

• Primary and guest OS support for SUSE Linux 10.


• Guest OS support for Sun Solaris.

Major Bug Fixes

• Many major bugs were fixed.

Known Issues:

• Isochronous USB devices are not supported yet (such as web cameras, USB sound cards and so on).