VMware 1.0

VMWare is a commercial CPU virtualizer for commodity x86 systems. Unlike a PC emulator, CPU instructions are not interpreted, but rather run directly on the host CPU alongside any other native operating system and applications.

It is a historically significant product as it managed to bring virtualization - once only the domain of large mainframes - to the 32-bit Intel x86 architecture, which was not really designed for such virtualization.

On servers, this enabled multiple OS and OS configurations to run on a single server, better making use of underutilized hardware. It also enabled easy VM migration between servers, greatly increasing utilization flexibility. This helped spark a shift to highly virtualized distributed architectures that marketing departments call "The Cloud".

On the desktop, VMWare enabled users to run x86 based OSes and software that was not otherwise compatible with their native operating system, without the speed penalty of emulators.

VMWare competed against VirtualPC, a product that started off as an emulator but later gained virtualization ability.

Current supported versions are available from the VMWare company.