VMware has just released the immediate availability of VMware Fusion 6 and VMware Fusion 6 Professional. The new version of the virtualization software boasts over 50 new features and is prepared for the new operating systems coming from both Apple (Mavericks) and Microsoft (Windows 8.1).

• Supports Mavericks multi-display features and even AirPlay displays
• Enhanced dictation support
• Run Mavericks as a guest operating system – can be installed using the recovery partition in just a couple of clicks
• Ready for Windows 8.1
• Built-in optimizations for the Haswell processors
• Up to 16 virtual CPUs, 64GB of RAM, and 8TB of disk space – ready for the new Mac Pro coming soon

VMware Fusion 6 is available exclusively on the VMware Online Store for $59.99 or $49.99 for VMware Fusion 4 or 5 upgraders. A 30 day trial is available as well.

The announcement comes just days after Parallels announced the release of Parallels Desktop 9, which is currently available as an upgrade. The full version will be available tomorrow. We’ll have a full review of both apps shortly.

Generally Parallels is geared toward single users and has better performance whereas VMware is geared toward larger enterprise and folks who also work on PCs. 

MacTech Magazine, which recently announced its upcoming MacTech BootCamp II, today looked at two of the most popular virtualization products for Mac with an in-depth benchmarking analysis of the most recent versions of Parallels Desktop 8 and VMware Fusion 5. We have seen Parallels 8 come out on top in benchmarks from previous reports, but this is by far the most comprehensive comparison.

MacTech put the two apps to the test in a number of areas including launching various OSes, application performance, 3D graphics tests, Retina Support, and much more. The conclusion: Parallels Desktop 8 won on the majority of general tests and 62 percent of 3D graphics tests.

In the vast majority of our overall tests, Parallels Desktop 8 won. Again, if you count up the general tests (including the top 3D graphics scores), Parallels won 56% of the tests by 10% or more. If you include all the tests where Parallels was at least 5% faster, as well as the balance of the 3DMark06 graphics tests, Parallels increased the lead further.

We recommend checking out MacTech’s lengthy analysis.

Parallels 8 for Mac currently sells for $55 on Amazon, while VMware Fusion 5 is available for as low as $46.99.

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Ars put Parallels 8 against VMware Fusion this week and found there is not much of a contest between the two virtualization powerhouses. Parallels 8 out-gunned VMware across the board (as previous benchmarks have shown) performance-wise and adds full support for Retina displays and dictation among other features.

Neither Parallels Desktop 8 or VMWare Fusion 5 are loaded to the gills with new features, so the PD8 update from version 7 is only a must-have if you are looking for Windows 8 or retina MacBook support in Windows 7 or 8. If you need retina support, this is your best option since Parallels did the extra work and made it a better retina experience than in VMWare Fusion 5. The Mountain Lion dictation and experimental DirectX 10 support show that, while Parallels tends to have more frequent paid updates and a higher price-tag, they try to earn the extra value with well thought out features and engineering. Apart from the bugs I saw in Mountain Lion 8, I think Parallels Desktop 8 earns that extra cost with its solid performance, far superior Linux OpenGL support, and existing feature set. But if your needs are more big-business-oriented, VMWare Fusion 5 Pro might be more your thing.

VMware Fusion might fit better into cross-platform installations or for folks with legacy VMware images.

Parallels 8 is available for download or trial here for $79. VMware starts at $49.

The Mac Observer just benchmarked Parallels Desktop 8 against its main Mac Desktop virtualization competitor, VMware Fusion 5.

Both applications were configured to virtualize Windows on a 2011 27-inch iMac running on OS X 10.8.1 at 3.4 GHz with 16 GB of RAM for this showdown. The comparison specifically measured their ability to handle the 64-bit versions of Windows 7 Professional and Windows 8 Pro.

Check out the results below: 

The conclusion:

From a purely performance-based perspective, Parallels has won this year’s competition of virtualization software on OS X. The good news for consumers, however, is that Fusion is not far behind in most categories and, while Parallels is indeed faster, Fusion is often fast enough for common tasks.

You can get Parallels 8 here or VMware Fusion 5 here.

Go to The Mac Observer for the full breakdown and more graphs. 

Both Parallels and VMware announced new versions of their software over the last 12 hours. Which software do you use to run Windows applications, if any? Do you Virtualize Linux or other builds of MacOS X?

Leave comments on your experience.

For the record, I have been using Parallels to deal with @#$% QuickBooks most recently, but off and on for years overall. VMware has also impressed me when I have tried it. Both products are so much better than the slow SoftWindows- type solutions we had in the PowerPC days.