Is it any good? This article could have been written by the Parallels PR department.
Don't forget that on top of that price you also need to buy a licence for Windows 7. Does it work with all versions of Windows 7 or have you got to buy the most expensive version?
I hope its easier to use than their website - confusing as hell and keeps falling over today.
FOURTH MAJOR story about this "app" in less than a week. AppleInsider is covering this story like they're in Parallels' pocket.
The links in the story don't go directly to Parallels, they go to a click counter which then forwards you to Parallels. I wonder if user information is compromised in the process...
Am I the only one who thinks they are pricing this very unfairl? Higher than even the student edition for an update in less than year? What do these guys think? That we 'll be paying them $50 yearly as if they were a subscription service? No wonder they help you run ms programs with that kind of ms style pricing.
No, you're not the only one!
I think it's overpriced, especially for a product that becomes discounted over time. Parallels 5 has always been $79.99 but Amazon has been selling it for $39.00, same as the student price. I'm sure version 6 will be discounted after the initial excitement dies down.
I saw the link here for the 9.99 upgrade to fusion and think I will try that, not going to pay 49.99.
I don't need bells and whistles, just want the fastest VM program I can find!
i thought parallels was about perfect around version 4, but has since turned in on itself and featured-bloated. 64-bit support sounds nice, but to be honest v5 ran like a dog in comparison to 4
Some of us actually use this and find it very helpful, not to mention it is software FOR Macs ... so what's the problem?
Totally agree. Parallels is a vital piece of software for me, even though I use it maybe 10% of the time. This article explained the new features that were not in previous articles and gave me a much better idea of what the product is about.
i thought parallels was about perfect around version 4, but has since turned in on itself and featured-bloated. 64-bit support sounds nice, but to be honest v5 ran like a dog in comparison to 4
no thanks, guys
I've had the exact opposite experience. V5 has been the best performing version for me, and I've been using since inception.
Looking forward to six. I took advantage of the buy 5 at amazon for $40, get a $20 discount, and free upgrade to six option instead of paying the $40 upgrade. Also discovered that if I use one of my many v3 license keys, I get another $20 discount, meaning I upgraded to v6 for free (and got a printed manual in the deal). Not too shabby.
The links in the story don't go directly to Parallels, they go to a click counter which then forwards you to Parallels. I wonder if user information is compromised in the process...
I've had the exact opposite experience. V5 has been the best performing version for me, and I've been using since inception.
Looking forward to six. I took advantage of the buy 5 at amazon for $40, get a $20 discount, and free upgrade to six option instead of paying the $40 upgrade. Also discovered that if I use one of my many v3 license keys, I get another $20 discount, meaning I upgraded to v6 for free (and got a printed manual in the deal). Not too shabby.
Yeah but it is shabby for people who paid $79 for the company to leave a right open window to buy 5 for 20 and then upgrade fro free, while they charge the update at $50, what do they want me to do, re-buy parallels to get a better price than upgrading? This is ridiculous...haven't they heard of torrents...
I've been thinking about buying this too... but I don't have my Windows discs for my old laptop. Does anybody know if you can use Parallels without having the Windows discs?
Yes, you do need a Windas installer disc. I recently installed Parallels 5 + XP Pro SP3 and it flies! Can't imagine how P6 could be '41%' faster when the Windas VM in P5 already starts-up in 40 seconds flat (MBPro,4GB). Thankfully, the suck-fulness of Windas is minimised in the Parallels coherence mode and it's a good way of running that odd, but necessary, program that isn't supported on the Mac. (Chembio-Office Ultra in my case.)
If Parallels is faster that means it finally caught up to Fusion. Maybe even passed it a bit but who really knows as I am sure it depends on the task.
All I know is that their marketing campaign is suckering people in to pay a lot of $$ for a product upgrade that charges a vast amount more for upgrades compared to the competition.
They can charge what they want but they better offer more than just great marketing behind that inflated fee.
Does anyone have experience running games over Parallels. There are some games only available for the PC that I would love to run on my Mac. I have been considering both boot camp and parallels. Can anyone speak to this?
Upgrade from any version of fusion AND parallels to fusion 3.1 for $9.99
I had Parallels V5 and took advantage of the offer above and got Fusion 3.1 with 1 year of upgrades for 29.99. The transition was smooth and it runs quite a bit faster than Parallels on my mid 2010 MBP.
The performance issue is an interesting one since people and companies bat it back and forth with all sorts of claims and justifications. The truth is that each of the two behave differently depending on what you use them for.
I run a full development environment along with databases so performance is definitely a must for me. When Fusion 3 was released I was hopeful for great performance improvements but when I did a testing of the two Parallels V5 was faster, used less disk space, and integrated better. At that time VMWare was playing a bit of a price game as well which all in all pushed me back to Parallels.
Now VMWare is pushing their performance under 3.1 and with a hit against Parallels that
Quote:
The nice folks over at Parallels talk about their many extra features like PC backup and PC partition management. We here on the VMware Fusion Team don't want to bring your PC experience over to the Mac; after all, that's why you left your PC behind.
What VMWare does not appear to get is that we would love to leave the PC behind but we can't, that is why we have purchased a VM! As such being able to manage those PC environments is vital to keeping them working.
With Parallels I am not happy with the price of upgrade either and that will play a role in my decision making. It would be most helpful if there were some real comparisons from independent sources published, rather than the little snippets that the companies release to us. I would like to see the full story with details on what was tested and how.
Comments
http://vmware.com/go/unparalleled
Upgrade from any version of fusion AND parallels to fusion 3.1 for $9.99
Is it any good? This article could have been written by the Parallels PR department.
Don't forget that on top of that price you also need to buy a licence for Windows 7. Does it work with all versions of Windows 7 or have you got to buy the most expensive version?
I hope its easier to use than their website - confusing as hell and keeps falling over today.
I use the Home version of windows just fine.
FOURTH MAJOR story about this "app" in less than a week. AppleInsider is covering this story like they're in Parallels' pocket.
The links in the story don't go directly to Parallels, they go to a click counter which then forwards you to Parallels. I wonder if user information is compromised in the process...
Am I the only one who thinks they are pricing this very unfairl? Higher than even the student edition for an update in less than year? What do these guys think? That we 'll be paying them $50 yearly as if they were a subscription service? No wonder they help you run ms programs with that kind of ms style pricing.
No, you're not the only one!
I think it's overpriced, especially for a product that becomes discounted over time. Parallels 5 has always been $79.99 but Amazon has been selling it for $39.00, same as the student price. I'm sure version 6 will be discounted after the initial excitement dies down.
I saw the link here for the 9.99 upgrade to fusion and think I will try that, not going to pay 49.99.
I don't need bells and whistles, just want the fastest VM program I can find!
no thanks, guys
Some of us actually use this and find it very helpful, not to mention it is software FOR Macs ... so what's the problem?
Totally agree. Parallels is a vital piece of software for me, even though I use it maybe 10% of the time. This article explained the new features that were not in previous articles and gave me a much better idea of what the product is about.
i thought parallels was about perfect around version 4, but has since turned in on itself and featured-bloated. 64-bit support sounds nice, but to be honest v5 ran like a dog in comparison to 4
no thanks, guys
I've had the exact opposite experience. V5 has been the best performing version for me, and I've been using since inception.
Looking forward to six. I took advantage of the buy 5 at amazon for $40, get a $20 discount, and free upgrade to six option instead of paying the $40 upgrade. Also discovered that if I use one of my many v3 license keys, I get another $20 discount, meaning I upgraded to v6 for free (and got a printed manual in the deal). Not too shabby.
The links in the story don't go directly to Parallels, they go to a click counter which then forwards you to Parallels. I wonder if user information is compromised in the process...
We've been marked! Our Windows will crash.
I've had the exact opposite experience. V5 has been the best performing version for me, and I've been using since inception.
Looking forward to six. I took advantage of the buy 5 at amazon for $40, get a $20 discount, and free upgrade to six option instead of paying the $40 upgrade. Also discovered that if I use one of my many v3 license keys, I get another $20 discount, meaning I upgraded to v6 for free (and got a printed manual in the deal). Not too shabby.
Yeah but it is shabby for people who paid $79 for the company to leave a right open window to buy 5 for 20 and then upgrade fro free, while they charge the update at $50, what do they want me to do, re-buy parallels to get a better price than upgrading? This is ridiculous...haven't they heard of torrents...
Parallels is definitely pulling away from the competition.
Let's see who will be the first to support native graphics hardware when running virtual machines on Macs:
http://www.parallels.com/products/extreme/
I've been thinking about buying this too... but I don't have my Windows discs for my old laptop. Does anybody know if you can use Parallels without having the Windows discs?
Yes, you do need a Windas installer disc. I recently installed Parallels 5 + XP Pro SP3 and it flies! Can't imagine how P6 could be '41%' faster when the Windas VM in P5 already starts-up in 40 seconds flat (MBPro,4GB). Thankfully, the suck-fulness of Windas is minimised in the Parallels coherence mode and it's a good way of running that odd, but necessary, program that isn't supported on the Mac. (Chembio-Office Ultra in my case.)
All I know is that their marketing campaign is suckering people in to pay a lot of $$ for a product upgrade that charges a vast amount more for upgrades compared to the competition.
They can charge what they want but they better offer more than just great marketing behind that inflated fee.
Build 6.0.11822
(Revision 604190; September 14, 2010)
From the 'Parallels Desktop' menu, click on 'Check For Updates'.
It downloads ParallelsDesktop-parallels-en_US-6.0.11822.604190.dmg from which you can install the update.
The previous was ParallelsDesktop-parallels-en_US-6.0.11820.602974.dmg
But I'm very tired of paying $50 every 7 months. Very tired.
The only thing in this upgrade that looks interesting is the iPad app, but I already have iTeleport to do that, so...
I'm skipping the upgrade this time. I've bought every version since day 1 (was an original beta tester).
They have enough of my money.
That should serve them right at parallels,
http://vmware.com/go/unparalleled
Upgrade from any version of fusion AND parallels to fusion 3.1 for $9.99
I had Parallels V5 and took advantage of the offer above and got Fusion 3.1 with 1 year of upgrades for 29.99. The transition was smooth and it runs quite a bit faster than Parallels on my mid 2010 MBP.
I run a full development environment along with databases so performance is definitely a must for me. When Fusion 3 was released I was hopeful for great performance improvements but when I did a testing of the two Parallels V5 was faster, used less disk space, and integrated better. At that time VMWare was playing a bit of a price game as well which all in all pushed me back to Parallels.
Now VMWare is pushing their performance under 3.1 and with a hit against Parallels that
The nice folks over at Parallels talk about their many extra features like PC backup and PC partition management. We here on the VMware Fusion Team don't want to bring your PC experience over to the Mac; after all, that's why you left your PC behind.
What VMWare does not appear to get is that we would love to leave the PC behind but we can't, that is why we have purchased a VM! As such being able to manage those PC environments is vital to keeping them working.
With Parallels I am not happy with the price of upgrade either and that will play a role in my decision making. It would be most helpful if there were some real comparisons from independent sources published, rather than the little snippets that the companies release to us. I would like to see the full story with details on what was tested and how.