June 11, 2007 4:14 PM PDT

Parallels breathes sigh of relief after Jobs' talk

SAN FRANCISCO--While most of the crowd at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference keynote address was eager to hear about all of Leopard's new features, Benjamin Rudolph was only interested in one.

Rudolph, who is the head of corporate communications for Parallels, was tuning in to what Steve Jobs would say about the new Leopard operating system's Windows-on-Mac abilities. When the Apple chief finally got around to discussing Boot Camp--the sixth of 10 features he demonstrated--Rudolph was hanging on every word.

Images: Windows on Mac moves forward

In the end, Jobs announced little new on that front, saying that the final version of Boot Camp would work just as Apple has been testing it--that is, allowing users to boot into either Windows or the Mac OS, but not support running both operating systems simultaneously. For that, Jobs touted software like Parallels, which uses virtualization technology to allow Windows and Mac software run side by side.

"We love these other things and we're helping them as much as we can," Jobs said.

Rudolph, sitting in an overflow room for the keynote, breathed a huge sigh of relief.

roundup
Apple kicks off WWDC with Jobs speech
Developers have two big things on their minds: the iPhone and the Leopard OS.

"We had it on pretty good authority that there wasn't going to be virtualization in Leopard, but it is Apple, so you never know," Rudolph said, grabbing a soda at the Metreon after Monday's keynote. "There was a little bit of me that was terrified."

Last week, Parallels introduced an updated version of its Parallels Desktop software. The Renton, Wash.-based company has sold about half a million copies of its product since the first edition went on sale last June. Version 3 adds a variety of new features, most designed to improve compatibility and make Windows programs running on a Mac look more like native Apple programs.

Although Parallels doesn't face direct competition from Apple, it is getting a well-heeled rival. Virtualization specialist VMware has been testing its product for months and plans a final version for later this summer. On stage, VMware got nearly equal billing from Jobs, though Parallels did get mentioned first.

VMware said late Monday that it plans to sell the final version of Fusion for $79 and that it should be ready in August. The company said that it is taking pre-orders for the software for roughly half price, $39.

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Add a Comment (Log in or register) 11 comments
As a long time VMWare user
by rcrusoe June 11, 2007 6:21 PM PDT
it's my opinion that Parallels has set a very high mark for them to shoot for.

I'm extremely happy with Parallels now, and v3 looks even better.
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Parallels cannot do direct access
by Thought Police OMalley June 11, 2007 9:11 PM PDT
and some of the multimedia and game software fails to run on
Parallels because it does not allow the software to directly
access the hardware devices for better performance. If some
software provides an option to use software acceloration, you
have to choose it in order to work, but it works slower.

Not only that but if you have a 512M Powerbook, it only leaves
256M for XP, Vista to run, and 256 for OSX to run and it slows
down both of them. You'll need at least 2 Gig of RAM and give
1G to Parallels to get Vista to work properly and get XP to work
fast enough to be useful. $80 for Parallels and whatever for
extra RAM will cost you quite a bit of money.
Reply to this comment View reply
VM should be integral from Apple!
by libertyforall1776 June 11, 2007 9:45 PM PDT
MS is doing it too, and who best to integrate it than Apple, maybe
working with partners, but this should be a core Leopard feature!
Reply to this comment View reply
not easy
by Hardrada June 12, 2007 10:41 AM PDT
MS just bought virtual pc from connectix. VMware is a 9 year old virtualization giant. parallels is a good company concentrating on mac virtualization.

Now.... why would we want a inferior product from Apple ? Other than that they will need enormous amount of resources to be in par with VMware. Not a likely move Apple will take just to give a free product in MacOs.
Reply to this comment View reply
Virtual Space
by demonjoe June 12, 2007 2:00 PM PDT
12 years ago when I saw what Taligent was doing in the micro-kerneled operating system space I was head over heals. I saw Mac, PC and Amiga software all running on the same system; it was heaven. Now, significant time has passed and we really have seen no true break-throughs. Yes, the Parallels product has been good to use and version 3 looks very promising, but, to anyone who thinks Apple should put this into the OS - $250M and no success in 1995 should tell us that task won't get accomplished.
Reply to this comment
Ditto.
by RustyR June 17, 2007 10:14 AM PDT
I just upgraded from an old iBook g4 to a new 20" iMac ... I have
been pleasantly surprised with Parallels. I will be upgrading to v3; I
have no reason not to! Quality software.
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