6 ms·

Given that this is owned Broadcom now, and they are going all in with squeezing every last drop from ESXi and similar offerings, I wonder what's gonna happen wi

Given that this is owned Broadcom now, and they are going all in with squeezing every last drop from ESXi and similar offerings, I wonder what's gonna happen with Fusion in the future; while now you only pay for commercial usage, maybe they are going to let it rot over the years until it's no longer cutting edge software? Would they keep it as a loss-leader?

AshamedCaptain 2y ago
Workstation was already rotting for all intents and purposes. Likely Fusion was also rotting since the switch to ARM but never tried it. The entire space ("desktop virtualization") is dead. Even VirtualBox which I praised a year ago seems to be slowing down. This likely just poisons the well for a market they had all but abandoned.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  I don’t know anything about high-end workstations really. But I wonder if the whole ecosystem is in a rough spot generally? Seems like cloud tooling is always getting easier. Shame really, people do fun stuff with excess compute.
- Thaxll 2y ago
  Virtual box was never good, it always felt half baked.
  - znpy 2y ago
    Years ago (pre-oracle) it was enough though: i have fond memories of using it with vagrant and be heppy.
    - accrual 2y ago
      Yes, when it was Sun VirtualBox I remember it was a favorite for testing out other operating systems for free with a simple UI. It wasn't the most powerful or flexible, but it's what was recommended if you wanted to (for example) try Ubuntu on your Windows host without dual boot or using another disk, etc.
  - AshamedCaptain 2y ago
    My point is that at least their paid support fixed the things I asked them to fix; I cannot say the same of VMware where support was already non-existent a couple years ago (I stopped using them the moment someone here in HN said the entire Workstation staff had been fired and replaced with skeleton overseas crew, and this was way before Broadcom).
- ghaff 2y ago
  Pretty much all desktop virtualization/VDI/etc. products have been de-emphasized by essentially everybody except to the degree that they're a largely free byproduct of server virtualization. I doubt any company is devoting more than a minimal number of resources to these products--maybe Apple more than others. Red Hat, for example, even sun-setted its "traditional" enterprise virtualization product in favor of Kuvevirt on OpenShift. And a VDI product was pretty much abandoned years ago.
  - justinclift 2y ago
    There are new VDI contenders still coming up though. This caught my attention recently (due to trialling Proxmox for another purpose): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLK_i-TQ3kQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLK_i-TQ3kQ There's clearly still demand for VDI solutions too. A recent example: https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/vdi-solution-for-proxmox.143587/ https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/vdi-solution-for-proxmox.1...
bombcar 2y ago
Fusion became basically worthless when you couldn't easily run Intel Windows on a Mac anymore because the underlying processor changed.
- stephenr 2y ago
  ... I've had a Fusion licence since v10 was current (~2017) and I don't think I've used it to run Windows even once.
  - codetrotter 2y ago
    I wonder how common that is though. In terms of people who might consider Fusion you have: - People who only use Windows - People who only use macOS - People who only use Linux - People who virtualize Windows on macOS - People who virtualize Linux on macOS - People who run FreeBSD or similar on their computers - People who virtualize FreeBSD or similar on macOS - People who virtualize various operating systems on Windows - People who virtualize various operating systems on Linux - People who virtualize various operating systems on FreeBSD or similar And I would guess that the largest group of people that use Fusion use it for running Windows in a VM on macOS. I would guess that the people who develop for Linux servers would mainly use Docker if they run macOS, and that also relies on VM, but not using Fusion.
    - rcarmo 2y ago
      Well, I use Parallels to run a Windows VM for work (on ARM). It's its own little bubble universe, completely isolated from my Mac desktop, but available at a swipe. I do use Fusion as well (on my laptop), and have a Windows VM there as well, but solely to run older games. Works fine.
    - basil-rash 2y ago
      What about people who virtualize various operating systems on macOS? That was my entire team at a prior engagement (at Microsoft, as it happens…). I suspect it’s a large number, developers tend to like macOS, so if you’re making a cross platform application and want to be able to test anything at all, you need a VM.
gorkish 2y ago
If you want to virtualize something with good performance on desktop windows you use Hyper-V; if you want to do it on mac you use Apple's Virtualization Framework; if you want to do it on Linux you use KVM. Desktop virtualization products used to bring the secret sauce with them; now that every OS ships with a well-integrated and well supported type 1 hypervisor they have lost much of the reason for existing. There's only so much UI you can put in front of off-the-shelf os features and still charge hundreds of dollars per year for.
- rcarmo 2y ago
  They still need to. You are glossing over the fact that you need to provide device access, USB access, graphics, and a lot of things that are not necessarily provided by the "native" hypervisor (HyperKit does not do even half of what Parallels does, for instance).
  - zten 2y ago
    Yeah, if you care about 3D acceleration on a Windows guest and aren't doing pcie passthrough, then KVM sure isn't going to do it. There is a driver in the works, but it's not there yet. edit: I made a mistake and got confused in my head with qemu and the lack of paravirtualized support. (It does have a PV 3D linux driver, though)
    - xxpor 2y ago
      Do any of the commercial hypervisors do that today?
      - reanimus 2y ago
        Pretty much all of them do, though the platform support varies by hypervisor/guest OS. Paravirtualized (aka non-passthrough) 3D acceleration has been implemented for well over a decade.
        wongarsu 2y ago

AshamedCaptain 2y ago

Workstation was already rotting for all intents and purposes. Likely Fusion was also rotting since the switch to ARM but never tried it. The entire space ("desktop virtualization") is dead. Even VirtualBox which I praised a year ago seems to be slowing down. This likely just poisons the well for a market they had all but abandoned.

bee_rider 2y ago
I don’t know anything about high-end workstations really. But I wonder if the whole ecosystem is in a rough spot generally? Seems like cloud tooling is always getting easier. Shame really, people do fun stuff with excess compute.
Thaxll 2y ago
Virtual box was never good, it always felt half baked.
- znpy 2y ago
  Years ago (pre-oracle) it was enough though: i have fond memories of using it with vagrant and be heppy.
  - accrual 2y ago
    Yes, when it was Sun VirtualBox I remember it was a favorite for testing out other operating systems for free with a simple UI. It wasn't the most powerful or flexible, but it's what was recommended if you wanted to (for example) try Ubuntu on your Windows host without dual boot or using another disk, etc.
- AshamedCaptain 2y ago
  My point is that at least their paid support fixed the things I asked them to fix; I cannot say the same of VMware where support was already non-existent a couple years ago (I stopped using them the moment someone here in HN said the entire Workstation staff had been fired and replaced with skeleton overseas crew, and this was way before Broadcom).
ghaff 2y ago
Pretty much all desktop virtualization/VDI/etc. products have been de-emphasized by essentially everybody except to the degree that they're a largely free byproduct of server virtualization. I doubt any company is devoting more than a minimal number of resources to these products--maybe Apple more than others. Red Hat, for example, even sun-setted its "traditional" enterprise virtualization product in favor of Kuvevirt on OpenShift. And a VDI product was pretty much abandoned years ago.
- justinclift 2y ago
  There are new VDI contenders still coming up though. This caught my attention recently (due to trialling Proxmox for another purpose): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLK_i-TQ3kQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLK_i-TQ3kQ There's clearly still demand for VDI solutions too. A recent example: https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/vdi-solution-for-proxmox.143587/ https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/vdi-solution-for-proxmox.1...

bombcar 2y ago

Fusion became basically worthless when you couldn't easily run Intel Windows on a Mac anymore because the underlying processor changed.

stephenr 2y ago
... I've had a Fusion licence since v10 was current (~2017) and I don't think I've used it to run Windows even once.
- codetrotter 2y ago
  I wonder how common that is though. In terms of people who might consider Fusion you have: - People who only use Windows - People who only use macOS - People who only use Linux - People who virtualize Windows on macOS - People who virtualize Linux on macOS - People who run FreeBSD or similar on their computers - People who virtualize FreeBSD or similar on macOS - People who virtualize various operating systems on Windows - People who virtualize various operating systems on Linux - People who virtualize various operating systems on FreeBSD or similar And I would guess that the largest group of people that use Fusion use it for running Windows in a VM on macOS. I would guess that the people who develop for Linux servers would mainly use Docker if they run macOS, and that also relies on VM, but not using Fusion.
  - rcarmo 2y ago
    Well, I use Parallels to run a Windows VM for work (on ARM). It's its own little bubble universe, completely isolated from my Mac desktop, but available at a swipe. I do use Fusion as well (on my laptop), and have a Windows VM there as well, but solely to run older games. Works fine.
  - basil-rash 2y ago
    What about people who virtualize various operating systems on macOS? That was my entire team at a prior engagement (at Microsoft, as it happens…). I suspect it’s a large number, developers tend to like macOS, so if you’re making a cross platform application and want to be able to test anything at all, you need a VM.

gorkish 2y ago

If you want to virtualize something with good performance on desktop windows you use Hyper-V; if you want to do it on mac you use Apple's Virtualization Framework; if you want to do it on Linux you use KVM. Desktop virtualization products used to bring the secret sauce with them; now that every OS ships with a well-integrated and well supported type 1 hypervisor they have lost much of the reason for existing. There's only so much UI you can put in front of off-the-shelf os features and still charge hundreds of dollars per year for.

rcarmo 2y ago
They still need to. You are glossing over the fact that you need to provide device access, USB access, graphics, and a lot of things that are not necessarily provided by the "native" hypervisor (HyperKit does not do even half of what Parallels does, for instance).
- zten 2y ago
  Yeah, if you care about 3D acceleration on a Windows guest and aren't doing pcie passthrough, then KVM sure isn't going to do it. There is a driver in the works, but it's not there yet. edit: I made a mistake and got confused in my head with qemu and the lack of paravirtualized support. (It does have a PV 3D linux driver, though)
  - xxpor 2y ago
    Do any of the commercial hypervisors do that today?
    - reanimus 2y ago
      Pretty much all of them do, though the platform support varies by hypervisor/guest OS. Paravirtualized (aka non-passthrough) 3D acceleration has been implemented for well over a decade.
      - wongarsu 2y ago