Not only will VirtualBox 3.0 do most of what both VMware Workstation or VMware Fusion can do, it comes free of charge with a Personal Use and Evaluation License from Sun, writes Jeff James in his Windows IT Pro review. James was also impressed by the capability VirtualBox 3.0 gave him to work with a variety of guest OSes.

The VM creation wizard also caught the reviewer's attention with its drop down menus and sliders that walked him step-by-step through the creation of a trial VM, which took him less than a minute.

The new VirtualBox 3.0 features -- improved 3D support for Windows guests; OpenGL 2.0 support for Solaris, Linux and Windows guests; guest SMP with support for up to 32 virtual CPUs; support for USB 1.1/2.0, USB over RDP, serial ATA controllers and RDP servers -- also found favor with James.

The ability to switch between VMs using the VirtualBox 3.0 mini toolbar for full screen and seamless modes was also a hit with James. He deduces that performance overall is on a par with the VMware Workstation solution.

The review does bemoan the lack of an ability to cut and paste between VMs plus the limited ability to flip between different VM states, unlike VMware Workstation.

In sum, James writes that, despite his reservations, "Sun VirtualBox 3.0 is an impressive product with an unbeatable price tag. It's a perfect solution for quickly creating dev and test environments; for example, running Windows 7 RC in a VirtualBox VM has allowed me to get acquainted with the latest Microsoft client OS without having to worry about running pre-release software on my primary home PC. You can't beat free, especially when combined with an impressive feature set. For those reasons (and more) VirtualBox 3.0 earns a hearty thumbs up from me."

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