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August 3, 2007

windows

Parallels makes beta public once again

Posted Aug. 3, ’07, 5:21 AM PT by Derik DeLong
Category | Windows

Parallels has done an about face from their last release and opted to make their latest beta public. This latest version features:

  • Coherence works with Expose.
  • Image Tool is back.
  • Explorer, the tool to browse your images with your virtual machine off, now works with suspended images.
  • iPhone support in XP and Vista. (Break out the streamers.)

The beta comes with the standard warning: “Don’t forget that even though its pretty stable, this is BETA code, and its not designed for production use.” Of course, I’m a little worried about their definition of beta stable when we’ve seen what release stable was with 3.0. And in reference to VMware’s announcement earlier today (funny timing, eh?), Ben of Parallels had this to say:

Also, I wanted to say “hello” to our new competition in Mac virtualization space:

Welcome to the party, guys. We’ve been waiting for you.

Ba-dum-bum. Parallels has a decent product and established userbase thanks to early entry to the market, but given the recent reliability track record and the fact that their product actually lacks several features in VMware’s, it’s not that funny.


2 Comments

NCBob said:

After being told by Parallels support that I shouldn't be trying to pause my Windows VM's because 'Windows machines are not meant to be paused, and trying to pause and resume them will cause problems. Yes we know it's an issue, and I wish they would take the pause feature out, but they won't listen' I know where my money is going. (well actually went, I've switched to VMWare Fusion and already pre-ordered and have my key, and no surprise the beta is more stable than the release version of Parallels, and the VM's are portable between the different versions of VMWare.)

August 3, 2007 6:01 AM
Jay said:

I purchased Parallels with my new Macbook a year ago. I used it regularly until I needed to start using Windows to access some WiFi hotspots that wouldn't work with OS X/Safari (some hotels use wonky IE only web pages to launch their WiFi). Neither Fusion nor Parallels supports wireless adapters in their VMs, so I needed to install Bootcamp to get native hardware support for the Macbook's WiFi adapter. Parallels' Bootcamp support was so flakey I gave Fusion a try. I purchased a license for Fusion after just a day of testing. It is much more stable than Parallels. I think the interface lacks some of Parallels' polish, but I'll take functionality over frills ever day.

August 3, 2007 10:04 AM

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