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As first noted last week, VMWare has released Fusion, its virtualization softwqre for the Macintosh. The software costs $79.99, and is available for online purchase and download. You can download a 30-day evaluation license from VMWare's Web site.

Fusion is VMWare's first virtualization software for the Macintosh, and it enables Intel-based Macs to run Windows and other x86-based operating systems without having to be rebooted first.

Fusion is not the first virtualization software to come to the Macintosh, however: Parallels has already carved out the niche for virtualization on the Mac with its Parallels Desktop for Mac software, and Codeweavers' CrossOver software enables some Windows applications to run without having Windows installed at all. VMWare senior product manager for Mac products Pat Lee believes that VMWare will be able to capitalize on strengths in Fusion not offered by Parallels Desktop.

In an interview with Macworld, Lee explained that Fusion features "Unity," which lets users minimize Windows applications to the Mac OS X Dock, switch between Mac and Windows apps using Expose, and more. Fusion supports more than 60 guest operating systems, including Solaris, Linux versions and various versions of Windows. The software also offers 64-bit memory addressing support, "experimental" support for Mac OS X v10.5 "Leopard" and 3D graphics support.

System requirements call for an Intel-based Mac (64-bit operating system support requires a Core 2 Duo or Xeon processor), 512MB RAM, 275MB hard disk space for installation and 1GB of space for each virtual machine, and Mac OS X v10.4.9 or later.