Fusion should be in the Mac App store

[Dylan Taylor]

Parallels is in there, and it would be awesome to be able to update it without logging into the broadcom account. It gives your product more visibility and lets the app update itself to stay up to date.

[Technogeezer]

While that's an interesting idea, consider that Broadcom positions itself to the commercial and professional developer market. They don't view themselves as part of the consumer market.

Inclusion in the Mac App Store requires conforming to some rules. I've seen other products in the App Store that are somewhat restricted compared to a directly-downloaded version of the product because of these rules.  I also don't know whether Fusion adheres to those rules, or what features would have to be removed to get there. I don't think that Broadcom is going to spend time making that determination. 

Having a Broadcom account, while inconvenient, does have some advantages in my mind:

• Since the only avenue for support is this forum, you need the account to post here to get help. And this is the only place where Broadcom people listen in - you won't get that in other non-Broadcom forums. 
• Fusion uses VMware Tools - and the place to get the latest versions of those is from Broadcom. (at least from a site that you'd want to trust as being authentic).

Fusion does have the ability to update itself without having to resort to using a Broadcom account. Minor versions and security updates don't require you to log into a Broadcom account and download an updater -- they're handled from within the product and on-demand. The only time you'd probably need a Broadcom Account is to upgrade major versions -- not something you'd want to do automatically. Yes, the in-product updater does have its problems at times, but it does work most of the time.

In the case of Fusion, auto-update may not be such a good idea from the commercial marketplace standpoint. Commercial users are sensitive to actions that could result in downtime, and updates that haven't been vetted by internal testing can be considered risky. The last thing a commercial customer wants is to apply an upgrade and then get flooded by calls to the support desk indicating that it broke something.

Parallels' offering in the App Store is a bit of a bait and switch. It's a trial version. You'll need to buy the subscription after the trial period expires. And the App Store version isn't the full version - there are notes in reviews from users that the App Store version is missing features and that it's not a very straightforward process to migrate from the App Store version to the full version. 

Fusion, with all of its warts, doesn't cost anything. Add UTM to Fusion and you get macOS virtualization. All still at no cost. You decide if the extra features that Parallels provides is worth the cost. 

------------------------------
- Paul (technogeezer)
------------------------------