Maureen O'Gara

Virtualization Magazine

Without any broad beta testing to give its plans away, Parallels, the desktop virtualization pioneer, released its Windows 7-supporting Parallels Desktop 5 kit on Wednesday.

It claims the widgetry, which lets Mac users run Windows and Linux alongside Mac OS X, is faster, smarter, easier and more powerful than previous generations.

Unlike Apple’s own Boot Camp, which forces people to reboot between operating systems, Parallels users can switch between Mac and Windows seamlessly because of virtualization.

They can now run Windows and Mac side-by-side in Windows Mode, have Windows completely cover the Mac user interface in Full Screen mode, or plum disappear Windows into the Mac interface in Parallels’ new Crystal Mode.

Using Windows apps is of course the only point of the exercise.

There are some 70 new features in the emulation utility and this time through the clever boys in the backroom have made it possible for Windows apps to pinch, swipe and rotate as Mac apps do by borrowing Apple’s Trackpad Gestures technology.

The Crimson Consulting Group clocked Desktop 5’s performance as 22% faster than VMware’s Fusion 3 running 64-bit Windows 7 on a MacBook Pro.

It’s also supposed to be up to 300% faster for virtual machine operations than Parallels’ previous version and benchmarked seven times better on 3D and graphics performance.

The company’s got this newfangled Compressor technology that automatically optimizes virtual machine size for best performance. It can support for eight virtual CPUs and KVM paravirtualization for Linux guests and has tapped into Intel’s VT-x2 widgetry for performance.

It supports Aero and promises copy & paste fidelity for formatted text and complete layouts including images, even between Windows and Linux guest operating systems.

It supports multiple monitors. And Parallels says PCs (including Windows 7) and third-party virtual machines can be easily moves to the Mac with its enhanced Transporter.

Parallels claims around two million users, which puts it ahead of VMware. CEO Serguei Beloussov thinks that may be 10% of the installed base of Apple machines but he’s mot sure.

The widgetry’s out initially in English, German, French, Italian and Spanish with Chinese, Czech, Hungarian, Japanese, Polish and Russian coming. It’s priced at $79.99 and comes with third-party security and backup.