Doesn't quite roll off the tongue.
Parallels has been great but, there are a few shortcomings that most people are aware of. For example, Parallels is not able to leverage multi-core processors and, so far, the best drivers aren't available for the graphics card and a few other items. Having read a good number of articles about VMWare's new product, Fusion, I decided to give it a try, in the hopes that it will resolve some of these issues. The beta is available here.
As advertised, Fusion is capable of using multiple cores. This solves one of Parallels shortcomings, at least in theory.
The installation of Vista was not nearly as smooth for me as Parallels Desktop was. This is not to say that it is difficult, no more so than a normal installation of Windows. One glitch I came across was getting Fusion to take control of the "cdrom" so that it could boot from the Vista DVD. It would seem that Fusion takes full control of the drive whereas Parallels appears to share the drive with OS X (the DVD appears to remain mounted while in use in Parallels). Beyond this, the installation was a straightforward install of Vista. Parallels wins in this arena because of it's ability to use existing information or information collected ahead of time (e.g., the product key) and skip through this segment of the Vista install.
After the installation I ran Fusion for an hour or so in which time I was unable to get it to use the correct resolution, 1440x960, that is appropriate for my MBP's LCD. As I found out when shutting down, I was supposed to install the VMWare Fusion tools. This annoyed me because it came around as I was shutting down. So I'll go back now and find out if this is the case.
Not only this but, TUAW is reporting that this video on YouTube confirms 3D acceleration support in the current beta of Fusion. Check it out on TUAW.
I'll post back shortly if this is indeed the case.
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