Not long after the launch of Mountain Lion and just in time for Windows 8’s release, the two most popular Windows visualization apps for Mac computers have been updated to support both new operating systems. Parallels today announced that Parallels Desktop 8 ($80) is available for existing users, with a broad release to new users on September 4, 2012, while VMware’s Fusion 5 ($50) debuted last week. Both apps bring loads of new features to the virtualization game.
Parallels and Fusion both allow users to take advantage of Mountain Lion features such as gestures, even when working in Windows apps. They also support the Retina display on the new 15” MacBook Pro, and claim the usual speed improvements as well. Of course, they each offer some unique features: Parallels supports additional OSes such as Chrome and even Android, while Fusion can be installed on up to three machines, and comes bundled with complimentary email support and anti-virus software. We’ll leave it up to you to decide which is the right choice, but it’s nice to know that if you absolutely have to run Windows, you have some options.
