VMware or Parallels for mac

[Kwacker]

Getting real hacked off with the pc and almost have the money for a mac.

But will want to occaisonally want to run windows, and rather than have to whip out the old laptop which is the better software?

I have used VMware in the past (6+ years ago) and know it works, but how much better is it now.

Kwacker

[qube_TA]

I've run XP under Parallels on my 10.6 machine, worked fine as far as I could tell, dead easy to install and set up. The only problem was that it had been so long since I used Windows I didn't have any use for it so it wasn't used in anger and was deleted shortly afterwards.

[pcameron]

I have used both commercial products, but I use the free Virtualbox product on my iMac to run Windows and Linux. It's not as full featured as the commercial products, but the actual virtual machine bit works well on the very rare time I need to use it.

[mmm-five]

I'm using VMWare Fusion 3 (upgraded from v2) on my Mac Pro to run Windows 7, and it's worked flawlessly so far.
Only use it for business applications that are not available for (or not compatible with) the Mac side.