Need to run Windows on your Mac on occasion? I do. I have to run it for work. I mostly use my Mac applications for work, but there are two that I need Windows for: Lotus Notes Designer and Lotus Notes Administrator. Well, plus Internet Explorer since I am a web developer - gotta test with it.
So, for my Windows running needs, I use Parallels Desktop. It allows me to install Windows on my Mac so that I can run it at the same time that I run my Mac applications. I recently ran into a little networking trouble with Parallels - nothing that has stopped me from using it for work, but one that is annoying and involves a work-around that I would rather not have to deal with. Since their support has been so slow to work with (email only, unless I pay $30 for a support ticket) I tried out VMWare's FUSION for Mac. It also allows you to run Windows within the Mac operating system. However, I was thoroughly disappointed in the performance of the application. VMWare Fusion absolutely kills my MacBook's performance (MacBook, Intel Core Duo, 2GHz, 2GB RAM). Parallels run Windows XP Professional so efficiently that I don't even know it is running. It does not kill the performance of my Mac OS X applications and system - VMWare does. So, I'm going to stick with getting my issue with Parallels resolved - next week their tech support team is going to attempt a screen sharing session via iChat to see if they can resolve my networking issue.
Try them out if you need to run Windows inside Mac OS X - and remember if you don't need to run it at the same time as Mac OS X, then the free with the OS option of Bootcamp is always available.
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