Unidesk is well suited to environments where users are accustomed to using personalized and "unique" desktops where as other solutions cater only to standard or non-persistent desktop experiences. The personalization layer present in Unidesk allows users to feel as though they are using a personalized system without the complexities of managing dozens or hundreds of unique systems for users across your company. Updates to existing desktops/layers are accomplished with ease and can easily be done by lower tier support. If your deliverable is to provide a persistent desktop experience while maintaining the best density and performance of your infrastructure then Unidesk is a hard solution to beat.
VMWare Fusion is perfectly suited for an application developer because it allows the dev to create cross-platform applications across the entire spectrum of operating systems without changing devices. An example of where it is less appropriate would be an environment where users are not required or have no need, to use multiple operating systems.
Running isolated software development environments. Setting up environment variables and installing the right software versions for a given project can be time consuming and fragile. By doing all of this within a virtual disk image, we can easily switch between software environments without risk of breaking anything.
Running Windows-only programs on a Mac is invaluable. We use MacBook Pro laptops for our primary development environment. There are simply some programs we cannot run on OS X. Having VMWare Fusion is an invaluable asset for running Windows apps on Mac laptops on the go.
Occasionally if a desktop is left on for too long some weird things happens. For example, the desktop is no longer recognized in AD - it could be AD, removal, etc., but I have checked all these. Refreshing and restoring the VM seems to solve the problem. This happened more than once.
We have redundancy (two) connection brokers - Unidesk has trouble from time to time knowing which one to use it seems.
The rebuild takes too long when the VM is larger. Users would reboot their desktop as a normal routine and they call to reboot thinking their VD is down when it was just taking its time to rebuild the layers (anywhere from 5 to 15 mins. Mostly 15mins).
It is very rare for this to happen, but sometimes the Windows environment loses the internet connection while the Mac environment still has it. Rebooting the Windows environment in VMware Fusion fixes it.
It does not always recognize printers that are set up through the Mac, particularly if they are connected via WiFi instead of hardwired.
For Apple workstations VMware Fusion is the virtualization software to use. No other application (free or paid) can do what Fusion can. The features and constant updates make Fusion an application that cant be beat.
I made an 8 because it's good in almost every aspect. As I said if you are on macos and you need both windows and linux I think is the best options out there. Otherwise if you need only windows there is a competitor that could be better for performance and integration.
It does what it says, and it does it well. AND...the technical support is second to none. Within an hour, I'm getting a phone call back from a COMPETENT ENGINEER that knows what he/she is talking about. For the less than 6 times I've had to call, I NEVER had to be escalated to another tech support person. BRAVO!!!
AppVolumes seems to be a lot less mature as a product. It does have some benefits over Unidesk e.g. the fact it doesn't include the OS Layer (image management) side means I can just use it for the app layering piece if I like. I can also deploy my application layers to physical desktops BUT I have had less success compatibility wise with my applications as AppVolumes 'AppStacks'. I believe Unidesk has a better handle on the do's and don'ts, or at least may be a little more honest about them. I also don't enjoy the Console with AppVolumes and while I can use it without the image management or tied into the stack the way Unidesk is...you also lose that image management and need to couple it with another product in some scenarios. FlexApp to me is stronger than AppVolumes. FlexApp is coupled with a profile management solution called ProfileUnity which makes it a more attractive alternative (at least at the time of me posting this). However, I prefer other UEM products at this moment in time. I also value the image management and ease of a single console for all of Virt Desktop management that Unidesk provides.
As mentioned previously, perpetual licensing was the #1 reason. The interface is also cleaner, simpler, and less bloat. Parallels also seem to run a bit slower. Fusion was also more stable and significantly faster in both raw performance and graphics compared to Virtualbox. Virtualbox also had a tendency to random freezings on some of our Linux instances on occasion.
Users using a VM often don't need something as "fancy" as VMware Fusion, and instead can use a free option like Virtual Box, so we waste money on using an extra amount of VMware Fusion licenses.
Developers using and IT admins using VMware Fusion for testing saves us time and money. Simply, we know mistakes would take time and money to fix, but VMware is powerful, allows for proper and fast testing.
