Scared? Insecure? NEVER!

Happy Halloween!

… And for those of you who don’t celebrate Halloween, happy last-Friday-of-the-month!

It can still be a spooky last-Friday-of-the-month, right? Even without celebrating Halloween. Spooky but happy, we can do that.

Speaking of spooky, and according to my sources, file insecurity is ulser-iffic!

After reading different articles around the web, it seems to me as though we have a rather wide range in views regarding data and Internet security. Some people are secure, some people are not. Some people think the Internet is great, and some people are too busy pulling their hair out, fearing that Internet Explorer is going to magically deliver their bank account numbers to homeless people on the other side of the planet.  No, these hairless people aren’t extremists; just extremely-scared-ists.

But we, on the other hand, are secure and sane humans, are we not?

Of course we are. We are Mac users and we can run Windows as safely as we can run OS X. We have free Kaspersky protection included with our Parallels Desktop software. That means any time you boot into Windows using Parallels Desktop for Mac, you won’t just benefit from running two operating systems at once, you’ll benefit from the full protection Kaspersky grants you against viruses, Trojans, worms and spyware by scanning all of your Internet traffic and stored files, including all e-mail attachments.

If that weren’t enough, Parallels Desktop also lets you take snapshots just in case you feel like tinkering with your Windows system. I’m sitting next to tech support right now and apparently a gentleman on the line thought it would be fun to install .NET Framework 3.0 during an electrical storm. Good news is:

    1) He survived the lightning.

    2) The Mac is still in one piece.

    3) He made a snapshot in Parallels Desktop last Monday.

Within 10 minutes he was as right as rain (minus the charged ions), all thanks to his snapshot restore.

Lastly, as many of you know our latest version, Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac, is in the works. I can’t tell you much about it right now, but let’s just say if the version 3.0 software package were the equivalent of a steel door of file security, the version 4.0 package is a steel door with a steel beam across it, and an eight foot tall Ogre guarding from the outside.

Yes, there’s even a doorbell for the trick-or-treaters.

The best is yet to come...

It's about two weeks since the competition launched their new version, and of course we've started to see reviews of it.  We all read them avidly - after all, we do have our own new version coming up and it's not for nothing we let them put theirs out first!  Indeed I did just twirl my moustache in a cunning and rather cavalier manner.

Of the reviews we see, the ones that have interested me most so far are comparisons of their new product with Parallels Desktop for Mac 3.0.  Last week, Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal published just such a piece and I found it pretty fascinating.

You see, the competition has been heavily pushing the message that they have incorporated 100 new features into their new version.  That sounds impressive, worrying for us even.  Yet Walt found maybe 5 features that aren't in Parallels Desktop for Mac 3.0.  5 out of 100 new features in a product that was launched two weeks ago compared to a product that was launched 15 months ago.

Maybe I missed something, but erm... does that not suggest that the other 95 features were all about playing catch up?  I'm obviously biased here, but really the implication to me is that for 15 months (since version 1 of their product launched at much the same time as the last version of Parallels Desktop) our product has had a LOT more to offer.

Now given that as I've already mentioned, we're working on a new version of Parallels Desktop for Mac, I don't think I'm giving too much of the game away to say we're probably also going to introduce a whole bunch of new features fairly soon.  As I say, I am biased, but it really seems clear to me that, as the saying goes, the best is yet to come...

 

Amazing Grace (Period)

To clarify, that's "grace period", not "grace.".   Clarification is in fact the name of the game today as it has been brought to my attention that the blogosphere and various Mac forums are alive with the question of whether big bad Parallels (us) plans to make all those poor innocent customers (you?) currently buying Parallels Desktop for Mac 3.0 pay for the next version when it comes out.

I'm slightly puzzled by this to be honest... it's not like we've been particularly secretive about it.  In fact, our good friend Apple has advertised it for us.  Perhaps the word just hasn't got around yet, or we've not made a loud enough noise about it.  In any case, let's correct that now.  [Drum roll please]

Any customers that have bought Parallels Desktop for Mac 3.0 from September 1st, 2008 automatically qualify for a free upgrade to version 4.0 when it ships.

Hopefully that's made it clearer, but please do let us know if you have any questions.

It's AMAZING that this was becoming so contentious really.  Oh OK, I admit it, that was a cheap shot just so I could use that title.