About.com has released the winners of its Readers’ Choice Awards for 2012, and for the second year running Parallels Desktop for Mac has taken home honors in the “Best Application for Running Windows” category. A landslide victory, Parallels garnered 72 percent of the votes, with the closest competitor receiving only 15 percent.
“Winning this award is a huge honor because it is a validation of our commitment to building products that delight out customers,” said Kim Johnston, vice president of marketing for the Desktop Virtualization and Mac division at Parallels, in a statement. “We take great pride in innovating and delivering products that address our customer’s needs, whether they are a small business or enterprise, student or developer. It is great to see that the work we have done has been so well received.”
In other recent developments, Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac was updated to provide experimental support for the Windows 8 Consumer Preview , including simple download and automatic installation of Windows 8 via the Parallels New Virtual Machine Wizard. The update also adds experimental support for OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview as both a host and guest. Now Mac enthusiasts and developers can safely try Windows 8 Consumer Preview and OS X Mountain Lion in Parallels Desktop 7 virtual machines to protect their Mac from potential mishaps or corruption of important files that can occur with preview versions of software.
All of these features are also available to customers on-the-go. With the Parallels Mobile app for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, you can remotely access and control both your Mac and Windows applications, and files, from anywhere. Its features include audio support for Flash and the ability to copy and paste text between Windows programs on Mac and your Apple mobile devices. Parallels Mobile is available in the iTunes App Store, and even works on the iPad 3.
Parallels has also created Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac Enterprise Edition to make it fast, simple and cost-effective for users to implement Macs in the enterprise. The Enterprise Edition empowers businesses and IT departments to support Windows based business applications for Mac users with a configurable, policy-compliant solution that easily fits into existing business processes and helps reduce the cost of deploying and maintaining client-based software.
Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac is available now with a standard retail price of US$79.99 and a student edition is available for $39.99. Parallels Desktop 7 Switch to Mac Edition is $99.99. The Parallels Mobile app is available in the iTunes App Store for a limited time promotional price of $4.99; the standard retail price is $19.99.
Source: Parallels
I stopped using Windows programs several years ago. No need for them. That about says it all.
And I would want to use Windoze because???????
How about developing web sites and having to test in Internet Explorer that still commands the majority of the browser world. Parallels sure beats having to reboot in Bootcamp and it is also a much better option than owning a test PC box.
Two words (or is it one?): Virtualbox.
Web sites should be developed according to HTML and other Internet standards. Not to the quirks of some odd browsers.
If the browser can’t handle the standards, then it’s time to switch.
QED
That would be great, now lets get back to reality.
…you have 10,000 3D solids documents in a program that only runs on Windows…currently.
The time to migrate all those documents accurately and in a manner so you can edit them is a tall order, so Windows it is for now.
One can only hope Windows developers start seeing the pressure from college age students who really don’t want to run Windows.
I avoid Windows almost as much as I avoid the sound of Sarah Palin’s voice. I have no masochist gene.
I tried an older version of Parallels a while back and it installed files all over my system and caused my Windows XP bootcamp drive to become extremely unstable. Uninstalling it did not fully remove all the files the installer put in my system. It took my hours to track down all the junk to manually remove them. As for the bootcamp drive, I had to re-install (what else is new, right?).
Secondly, it did everything possible to integrate my XP system in to my Mac OS X system. I did not like this at all. I want my Windows system to be as sandboxed as possible. There simply was no easy way to get this done.
After these experiences, I would not recommend Parallels to my worst enemy. Fusion is far better albeit a bit slower.
When I bought my first Intel Mac last year, I thought the first thing I’d do would be install Windows, just because I could. Still haven’t gotten around to it …
only reason I have Parallels on my computer is for my annual tax software…
for the other 360 days, it’s left unused
Please be warned. Parallels has had a bug in it for at least 3.5 years whereby, under some unknown set of circumstances, a task called “prl_disp_service” will start to eat up 100% CPU time, even when Parallels is not running. It seems to dominantly (if not exclusively) affect MacBook machines of various models and vintages, and inevitably causes a massive drain on battery life.
The easy fix for this is to just kill the run-away task, although having done that you won’t be able to use Parallels again until you reboot.
This bug is still present in Parallels 7. It’s a disgrace that they still haven’t fixed it.
(If you doubt me just google prl_disp_service.)
I own a copy of Parallels 6, but I’ve recently given up and swapped over to VMWare Fusion 4.
Apparently it is an intermittent bug. I’ve never run into it using Parallels 6 on 10.5 Leopard, 10.6 Snow Leopard or 10.7 Lion. Neither am I seeing it with Parallels 7 on 10.7.3.
There certainly are still such things as KEXT extension conflicts and daemon process conflicts. I ran into one with an older version of BOOM, which they kindly repaired after I reported it. I’ve seen ‘race condition’ processes from Intego Virus Barrier (I’m a tester), Micromat’s TechTool Pro and an old version of Tex-Edit Plus. All have been updated and patched. Then there’s Adobe Flash: What a dreadful POS.
I broke down and upgraded to Parallels 7 last week: $30 at MUPromo.com. Such a deal! I held out because I figured a deal like that was coming up. MacWorld also had it as part of a $50 bundle in January.
I like Parallels fine. It’s just Windows that I hate. What a POS, as ever.
BTW: The linked ad on this page
“Mac Madness Save 25% on Parallels Desktop 7!”
ended last week.
Parallels still offers their 14-day trial. There is also likely to be another sale on Parallels by the summer.