Goodbye!

Just a short note to everyone who's been a loyal reader for the past 2.5+ years that today is my last day at Parallels.

It’s very hard to leave after putting so much of my heart, soul and sweat into the company, and it will be hard to leave all of you, many of whom I’ve corresponded with regularly since the "early days". My time here as been a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I wouldn’t trade a single minute of it for anything. Its been a blast being part of Parallels, and I know that Parallels will continue to do bigger and better things.

And of course, the Parallels Consumer Tech Blog won't be going away. The Parallels Team will continue to update the blog and work with you to help answer your questions. Stay tuned for new faces and new posts soon...and for some very cool & important product news!

As sad as it is to move on, I am excited to take on my next challenge – leading enterprise PR for Windows Vista/Windows 7 at Microsoft. If you’d like to stay in touch (and I hope you do!), you can find me at my soon-to-be-launched personal blog at bentheprguy.blogspot.com.

Thanks for being great partners, colleagues, friends and mentors, and best of luck to all of you – and to Parallels!

You're invited: Dive deep into virtualization and SaaS at the 2008 Parallels Summit

In two weeks, on May 19-20, Parallels is hosting its 3rd annual Parallels Summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC. The Parallels Summit is an annual conference where more than 500 of our customers, partners, and worldwide team members gather to dive deep into virtualization and SaaS, learn about new products from partners like Intel and Microsoft, and network with industry leaders.

It's a great place to get the inside scoop on emerging trends in
- Virtualization on the desktop and in the server room
- How to simplify IT management and automation
- Green computing
- SaaS as an internal and external tool/business model

The best part? REGISTRATION IS FREE!!! Hit the Parallels Summit Main Page to learn more about what to expect, who's attending, and the fun stuff we have planned during and after each day's sessions.

Parallels Desktop Build 5600: Complete Vista SP1, XP SP3 Support & More

Earlier this morning we posted Parallels Desktop build 5600, which adds full support for Windows Vista SP1, Windows XP SP3, and improves compatibility with the MacBook Air.

If you're already a Parallels Desktop user, you'll get this update for free (of course) via your auto-updater, or you can download it manually. If you're a new user, you're welcome to try it out for free with our 15-day, fully functional eval copy. Download your update or get a trial copy here.

Major features and updates in 5600 include:
- Full support for Microsoft Windows Vista SP1, including Boot Camp support
- Full support for Microsoft Windows XP SP3, including Boot Camp support
- Full compatibility with the MacBook Air
- Shared Folders improvements: Improved file transfer speed for SmartSelect, and the ability to share files and folders to/from removable drives
- Minor bugfixes and performance enhancements

More information on the update (including a full list of all of the new stuff in this build) is available at the Parallels Desktop Main Page.

Parallels Server Beta4 is Live; Leopard Server Virtualization Support Returns!

Just a quick heads up that Parallels Server beta 4 is now live at the Parallels Server Beta Site, and we've re-included Leopard Server virtualization support, meaning you can once again run Leopard Server in virtual machine on an XServe (or other Apple hardware) running Leopard Server.

See? I told you that we'd bring it back! Go give it a try by downloading your beta copy here.