VMWare Fusion announces macOS Big Sur-compatible tech preview

By Mike Peterson

VMWare Fusion has announced that a "tech preview" of its virtualization app with support for macOS Big Sur is coming in early July.

Credit: VMWare

Among other features, macOS Big Sur lays the groundwork for an upcoming Mac shift to proprietary Apple Silicon.

Aside from announcing the tech preview, VMWare didn't offer any other details about how its own virtualization software will support macOS Big Sur -- or how it'll be supported by ARM-based chips. In a subsequent tweets, VMWare Fusion asked its followers how they'd use Fusion on ARM.

Current virtualization software won't work without support on ARM-based platforms, though Apple has said that macOS Big Sur introduces "virtualization technology" that will allow users to run Linux on machines with Apple Silicon.

During its WWDC 2020 keynote, Apple showed off a Mac with an ARM A12Z Bionic chipset running a Linux distribution in Parallels, suggesting that the company is working to support virtualization software through the transition.

Other Intel-based apps will continue to run on ARM Macs with the help of Apple's Rosetta 2 technology. The shift to ARM chips will also allow future Macs to run iPad and iOS apps natively.