Vmware is important to me as I need MS Access to run our company's accounts.
VirtualBox has a nice feature that allows the virtual machine's desktop to be hidden, so that the applications on it (eg Access) appear more or less as native applications on your desktop alongside other Linux apps.
I was just looking around at alternatives to Vmware and saw VirtualBox, does it basically 'feel' like Vmware in the way it works? I.e. I can just install XP as a guest and run things in the guest while the rest of my Linux box is just that, a Linux box?
There's a handout comparing the biggest three free virtual machine offerings available from the September ALUG Ipswich meeting notes, which lists some of the pros and cons between them.
http://www.alug.org.uk/wiki/moin.cgi/IpswichMeetingNotes
I use VirtualBox OSE, and it is incredibly useful.
Peter.