...And There Was Much Rejoicing

 

Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac is now OUT! And by "OUT" I mean "IN".... stores!

Now, I'm just a simple sandwich man (read: "Blogger"), but for the purposes of this particular blog I feel qualified to speak for the entire Parallels team, and it's because when talking about Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac, you'll get the same answer from each of my co-workers:

We're extremely proud of this product. We've been waiting for its release for a long time, we've been waiting to tug our suspenders and brag about it for a long time, and we're ever-so excited now that it has launched. The reason for all the excitement is simple; it's quality work. Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac is easy, fast and powerful. It not only trumps our own previous software and that of our competitors, but it exceeds many previous expectations of what virtual machines are capable of.

We took our time developing Parallels Desktop 4.0 and tested each feature several times over (with much help from our generous beta testers). Time well spent. You don't just go out and sell fission-powered roller-skates without testing them first; someone will get vaporized. Okay, it's a lengthy process, but our end result is an awesome virtual machine program built on a brand new engine. We took the best things people loved about Desktop 3.0 and designed 4.0 with those in mind, plus some sweet extra features; designed to utilize the most up-to-date hardware, and protected by the best software.

If Iron Man were a Mac application, he'd be Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac. I'm serious, just think about it. He's smart, fast, and powerful. He has a hundred useful gadgets, and he protects people from harm... and he shoots lasers... just like Parallels.

Ah yes, now that the software is out in stores, there is going to be so much to talk about. There are so many features; I'm not sure whether I should rant about the optimization of our Power Saver, which now gives a 20-30% increase in laptop battery life, or rave about our built-in voice recognition. Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac has faster and more stable application support, better device recognition, better hard drive management for repartitioning, better 3D graphics support... Not to mention the free Kaspersky virus protection.

I'll tell you what, here's the product feature page for the new version. Beautiful isn't it? Now go try Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac out for yourself and tell us what you like the best. After all, our best features began as suggestions made by Parallels fans in the first place. When you get back from playing with the new toy, come back here and I'll have written an entire novel.

I'll title it: The Machine That Thought it Was Two

Comments

[Mike Trump]

I'm a Parallels Workstation for Windows users. In two years, I've seen two versions of Parallels for Mac come and go. Meanwhile, Parallels Workstation for Windows has been stuck on V2.2 without any major updates.

Perhaps you can put more effort in the Workstations for Windows product. We are your customers too and we should not be treated like 2nd-class citizen.

[Ingo Renner]

Yeah, sounds all cool, but why is there no support for Ubuntu 8.10? I just installed it on PD3 to play around with it a bit only to find out that the Tools aren't working ... And now even PD4 (at least from what the product page says) doesn't support it?

[mike3k]

I installed Ubuntu 8.10 on it and tools are working.

[Leto]

You can look forward to seeing a new version release of Parallels Workstaion sometime next year. We haven't forgotten about you. Our engineer team is hard at work on more than one project. For a look at our thought process on this, refer to this blog posted in Parallels Virtualization, Inc.:
http://blogs.parallels.com/virtualizationinc/2008/09/cross-my-palm-w.html

Ingo,
As for Ubuntu 8.10, we are going to test that in-house over the next few days. It's not easy keeping up with all the different Linux versions out there. We'll let you know how it turns out.
I appreciate Mike's feedback on that, btw.

[Jason Noble]

I have a question about the following:

Extended Download for Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac Upgrade [300164024] (12 months) $6.99

What do I get by paying the extra $6.99? With 3.X and earlier, I could download the demo version for free. By entering my product key, it became the full version. Has this changed?

Thanks,
Jason

[Eli]

Hi Ben,

I was wondering if firewire support will ever be integrated into Parallels in the future. I really thought that Parallels was going to be my saving grace with my favorite recording software, Sonar. I have been recording with it since it was called cakewalk, and have been stuck in my ways with recording software and have been to grumpy to use anything else. The problem has been, Sonar is exclusively Windows and as I am now a mac convert I have not been able to use it. I was incredibly excited with Parallels, because finally, now was my chance. The only problem is my audio interface is a firepod (firewire device)
I was so excited to see Sonar running on my macbook with my trial of Parallels, followed by a big bum out when I couldn't get the firepod to integrate. Sorry to give such a long-winded email for a simple question, I am just desperately hoping for some last ditch solution. Oh, what about a firewire to usb adapter? Would Parallels be able to read the conversion?