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VMWare yesterday announced the availability of the first release candidate of Fusion for Mac OS X. The software enables Intel Macs to run Windows and Linux applications within the Mac environment.

Intel's investment arm, Intel Capital, said that its cash injection

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"is intended to foster strengthened inter-company collaboration towards accelerating VMware virtualisation product adoption on Intel architecture and reinforcing the value of virtualisation technology for customers".

Intel will also collaborate with VMWare on future software development.

The world's number one computer chip maker has previously invested in SWSoft, whose Parallels Desktop for Mac is the rival to VMWare's Fusion in the market for OS X virtualisation software.

Serguei Beloussov, chief executive of SWSoft, said that while the cash was nice, the subsequent collaboration was worth much more.

"Virtualisation is all about getting more from your computing power, so collaborating with the company providing much of the technology at the heart of this makes perfect sense," he said. "For us, working with Intel means we are able to make our products more effective, and bring them to market quicker."