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VirtualBox may be free, but you still have to own a copy of Windows. If you’re not willing to shell out a few hundred dollars to Microsoft but still want to run Windows on your Intel-based Mac, there is one more alternative: CrossOver from CodeWeavers costs $40 and runs Windows applications on Mac OS X — without Windows.
Vineyard is a collection of tools you can use as a replacement for Wine's default configuration tool, designed to make it easier to manage Wine. Something like this should really be integrated into Wine - just because Wine is for well, running Windows applications doesn't mean it can't use a native configuration tool.
Wine allows users to run Windows programs natively under Linux without paying a dime. However, there's a tiny problem: programs running in Wine don't look so great.
By itself Wine is very usable but you need a fair amount of expertise or lots of time to get your favourite Windows application running correctly. This is why we have companies like Bordeaux Group and CodeWeavers who sell commercially supported Wine version or management tools that make our lives a little easier.
I don't know how vital is Wine software for you anymore. I mean, I haven't used it for ages. May be because I am not a gamer of sorts and I don't use iPod. In case of applications, I have good alternatives for most of the windows specific applications. But for those who still can't live without Wine, here is the good news. Wine 1.2 RC3 is released with a lot of major bug fixes and improvements.
As the title says I'm going to talk about some of the differences between all of the above. WINE is basically a windows emulator for Linux operating systems. WINE allows you to run some applications on Linux that does not have Linux support or installers ie: Office 2007, World of Warcraft and many others. This is not a how-to but more a idea of what is going around and what its all about.
There are many options for running Windows programs on the Mac. Boot Camp, for instance is included with OS X for installing Windows on a separate partition. Parallels VMware and Sun offer virtualization software that let you run your Windows programs without logging out of OS X. And then there's Wine.
