So I’ve been geeking out with my new MacBook and OS X, and trying to figure out whether I would go with VMware Fusion or Parallels for Microsoft Windows application integration. But as of a few minutes ago, I might not use either of them! Exigent Technologies is a big believer in thin-client and server-based computing. We regularly install and configure Windows Terminal Services, 2X and Ericom PowerTerm WebConnect. In fact, we’ve built our cloud computing offering on the Ericom platform and use PowerTerm WebConnect internally.
Using PowerTerm WebConnect and Windows 2008 Terminal Services, we simply published the Windows applications that I want to be able to access from my Mac. Now I can just use a web browser to access them and my internal network, quickly and securely, from anywhere. And yes, it works with Safari (though I use Firefox).
So the question is, should a business owner or IT manager purchase, deploy and maintain several copies of Fusion or Parallels? Or, simply set up a server based solution like Ericom to streamline the process. For now, I’m holding off on installing Fusion or Parallels until such a time that I see a good reason to have one of them running on my Mac.
