With the current back to school promotion Apple is running, I'm sure quite a few students are purchasing their first mac. VMWare Fusion 3 allows you to run Windows itself, and windows applications within OSX.
More info about fusion here: http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/
JB Hifi have retail copies in store for $109.
Regular online cost is $94.95 or $118.52 w/ update subscription.
http://www.vmware.com/vmwarestore/academicstore.html
Buying online direct from VMWare with the Academic discount is only $47.20
(please note the price list in the link is in US dollars. $39.99 becomes $47.20 AUD once you fill in details)
$47.20 is cheaper than any of the past 30-50% off sales :D
Terms & Conditions: http://www.vmware.com/vmwarestore/academicstoreterms.html
Are you eligible?
In order to acquire VMware software at an academic discount, you must be an Eligible Educational End User to use the VMware Software. "Eligible Educational End Users" means students, faculty, staff and administration attending and/or working at an educational institutional facility (i.e. college, university, public or private K-12 schools) as well as parents or legal guardian buying on behalf of a child who is a student attending or accepted to a qualifying academic institution. If you are under 18, you may buy products on the VMware online store only with the involvement of a parent or guardian. VMware reserves the right to refuse service, terminate accounts, remove or edit content, or cancel orders in their sole discretion.
Verification Requirements:
In order to purchase selected products through the VMware academic store, individuals are required to enter their academic institution name and e-mail address.
VMware audits this data to insure that academic purchases are only made by eligible participants. If VMware determines that you were not eligible to purchase from the VMware Academic Store, you authorize VMware to charge your credit card or Paypal account for the difference in price between the public retail price of the same product (published on vmware.com) and the price you paid on the date you placed the order.
Basically, anyone who attends or works at an educational institution is eligible. If you are not, and they notice, they will automatically charge you the full price difference at a later date.
Make sure to use your Uni/School email address!
Just be aware that VM Fusion does not run Windows 7 in 64bit (under 10.6)
Only Parallels can do that.