VMware Announces Availability of Sixth Generation of Industry-Leading Desktop Virtualisation Software

PALO ALTO, California, May 14 /PRNewswire/ --

- VMware Workstation 6 Extends its Technology Leadership with Groundbreaking Record/Replay Capabilities, Numerous Industry-First Features and Paravirtualisation Support

VMware, Inc., the global leader in software for industry-standard virtualised desktops and servers, today announced the general availability of VMware Workstation 6, the sixth generation of its desktop virtualisation software product. VMware Workstation 6 delivers groundbreaking advances in virtualisation technology while offering numerous new features such as Windows Vista support, as well as industry-first support for multiple display monitors and USB 2.0 devices, making it highly appealing to IT administrators, developers, testers and other technical professionals and enthusiasts.

Introduced more than eight years ago, VMware Workstation enables pre-production testing of desktops and servers in virtual machines, rehosting of legacy applications, rapid provisioning and resetting of multi-tier environments and accelerated software development and testing. With an advanced feature set and broad support for x86 operating systems, VMware Workstation continues to be the "gold standard" virtualisation product for desktop and laptop computers.

"This feature-packed release of VMware Workstation demonstrates our commitment to delivering cutting-edge products that help enable users to maximise the benefit of virtualisation on the desktop," said Dan Chu, vice president of emerging products and markets at VMware. "VMware Workstation 6 raises the bar significantly for desktop virtualisation-it is a must-have product and the only choice for serious desktop virtualisation users."

"VMware Workstation is one of the strongest tools in our toolbox," said Brett Shavers, managing principal at NTI Associates, a company specialising in forensic work. "VMware Workstation helps us with our forensic investigations, enabling us to restore individual workstations and networks to the exact state of a machine under investigation so we can test for trojans and viruses. We are excited about upgrading to VMware Workstation 6 for its support of USB 2.0 devices, which will enable us to run our forensic processing applications on the fastest running hardware available-helping us save time and avoid delays in our results."

"I am a developer who works primarily with Windows Vista x64, so VMware Workstation's 64-bit support is very useful to me," said James Michels, head of technology at Bluefin Trading, a private trading firm specialising in equities, debt, option and derivatives trading. "Before I release my code, I regularly use VMware Workstation to try the application out on 32-bit Windows Vista as well as 32-bit Windows XP. Additionally, I have fresh installs to test out applications against. And I can do all of this on a single desktop. Once you use VMware Workstation, you can't imagine life without it."

VMware Workstation continues to be the most advanced desktop virtualisation product for industry-standard PCs. Only VMware Workstation offers broad operating system support for Windows, Linux, NetWare, Solaris x86 and FreeBSD. The product also features a sophisticated architecture that includes full 64-bit support, industry-first support for up to 10 network interface cards and experimental support for two-way Virtual SMP. New features in VMware Workstation include:

- Windows Vista support: Users can deploy Windows Vista as a guest or host operating system, facilitating re-hosting of legacy systems, enabling upgrade and migration projects with minimal end-user disruption and simplifying Windows Vista evaluations.

- Multiple monitor display: Users can configure one virtual machine to span multiple monitors or multiple virtual machines to each display on separate monitors with this industry-first capability, enhancing desktop productivity.

- USB 2.0 support: Users can take advantage of high-performance peripherals such as Apple iPods and fast storage devices.

- ACE authoring capabilities: As a companion to VMware Workstation 6, VMware now offers a VMware ACE Option Pack, which enables VMware Workstation 6 users to create secure, centrally manageable virtual machines. Mobility is one of the primary benefits of this Option Pack, as it allows users to securely transport virtual machines on portable media devices such as USB memory sticks.

- Integrated Physical-to-Virtual (P2V) functionality: Users can create a virtual machine in minutes by "cloning" an existing physical computer.

- Integrated virtual debugger: Users can deploy, run and debug programs inside a virtual machine directly from their preferred integrated development environments (IDEs), accelerating debugging with this industry-first integration with Eclipse and Microsoft Visual Studio.

- Background virtual machine execution: Users can run virtual machines in the background without the VMware Workstation user interface for an uncluttered user experience.

- Automation APIs: Users can write scripts and programs that automate and help quicken virtual machine testing with support for VIX API 2.0.

In addition, VMware Workstation 6 advances the state of the art in virtualisation technology with groundbreaking new capabilities including:

- Continuous virtual machine record and replay (experimental): Users can record the execution of a virtual machine, including all inputs, outputs and decisions made along the way. On demand, the user can go "back in time" to the start of the recording and replay execution, guaranteeing that the virtual machine will perform exactly the same operations every time and ensuring bugs can be reproduced and resolved.

- Virtual Machine Interface (VMI) support (experimental): VMware Workstation 6 is the first virtualisation platform to allow execution of paravirtualised guest operating systems that implement the VMI interface.

Pricing and Availability

VMware Workstation 6 for both Windows and Linux host operating systems has a list price of $189 and is available for electronic download today at www.vmware.com/products/ws/. The product can also be purchased through the network VMware of resellers and distributors.

About VMware, Inc.

VMware, an EMC company (NYSE: EMC), is the global leader in virtual infrastructure software for industry-standard systems. The world's largest companies use VMware solutions to simplify their IT, fully leverage their existing computing investments and respond faster to changing business demands. VMware is based in Palo Alto, California. For more information, visit www.vmware.com or call 650-475-5000.