IT Week Labs recently tested a beta release of VMware’s Fusion, a desktop virtualisation product for Mac OS X comparable to VMware Workstation but with a distinctly Apple-flavoured appearance.

The final product will compete with Parallels’ Parallels Workstation for the job of offering OS X users easy access to Windows, Linux and Solaris applications.

Although it features a revised interface, Fusion is very similar to VMware Workstation on Linux or Windows: it features the same configuration and control options and performance is on a par too.

It should be noted that OS X is not one of the operating systems that can be run on another virtual machine, however. Virtualised OS X remains a sticky subject because Apple will not allow its operating system to run on non-Apple hardware.

VMware has hinted that it might enable virtualised instances of Mac OS X by implementing some sort of check to make sure that an OS X virtual machine was running on Apple hardware, but so far it seems that OS X will remain walled off from the world of virtualised deployment.

Fusion includes a capability within the Fusion dialog for opening or creating a pointer to VMware’s Virtual Appliance Marketplace. From there, users can download virtual appliances to run with Fusion.

It also includes support for USB 2.0 devices, as does the beta of VMware Workstation 6. VMware Fusion lets users assign multiple processors or, in the case of the Mac Mini, multiple cores to individual virtual machines.

VMware has not announced a release date or pricing for Fusion but a public beta is available for download from the VMware web site.