Is there gonna be a beta for Workstation, too? :-)

Hello,

as a Parallels Workstation and Desktop for Mac user, i am wondering whether Parallels Workstation will also get such a version with new features ;-) Currently, it kinda seems so outdated compared to the Mac version...

 

.
Parallels have realised what's happening in the virtualisation world and produce product to best suit themselves.

They have a distinct advantage in the mac market. A market that has users willing to pay premiums for product, and no competition.

Contrast that with the Linux market where users are more frugal, and the competition are companies like vmware, and virtualbox, who supply their product free.

I no longer hold great hope for Parallels in the Linux market. But that's just my opinion.
.

 

That seems to be the feeling I get too, but I'll wait 6 months before I render that decision. All the betas that are currently out for testing are all for the Macs. Let's see, Mac - 4 betas to date, Linux/windows - 0 betas to date. The one thing I'm thinking is that as soon as the latest beta for Mac goes gold, then much of what they put in the mac version will trickle down to the linux/windows side, so I gather 6 months should be a reasonable time frame to see if a new version comes out with most of the features currently in the mac betas/RCs. The problem is that the silence from the developers is most deafening.

 

This is the beginning of the end. With VMWare so far ahead of Parallels in the Linux world and PC world, the Mac was their only refuge (my speculation). Now VMWare has entered the Mac market too. Parallels doesn't understand that they could have a "cult" following if they could do a better job of taking care of their customers. Microsoft is giving VPC away for free, but doesn't support Linux, VMWare is expensive. If Parallels would take care of their PC customers, the positive news would spread and their market share would grow. Instead they focus on compressor server. As they neglect their PC customers, they become frustrated and compelled to spend the extra money to buy VMWare. PC customers who don't need great Unix support will use the free VPC.

I own 2 copies of Parallels for PC and 1 copy of Paralles for Mac. The Mac copy works great, but both PC copies (one windows, one linux) can't serve their intended purpose due to limitations that the company doesn't seem to be in a hurry to overcome.

Paralles can't handle more than 3GB of RAM. Considering the intended use of the application, this is a HUGE problem. In windows, the networking is simply screwed up. Both problems have been addressed in the Mac version.

Considering the amount of time I have spent trying to work through these issues, VMWare is getting cheaper by the day. I liked Parallels until I learned of it's limitations and lack of support.

 

Well, for me the main argument for Parallels Workstation is 1) its low price and 2) compatibility with my Mac images. I don't necessarily think that Parallels is much behind VMWare technically. Maybe, VMWare is currently a little better and stable on Windows and Linux, but on the other hand, i would guess it won't take Parallels that long to catch up. I really haven't seen a lot of progress in VMWare Workstation lately. In fact, i thought the new features of VMWare Workstation 6 beta were pretty underwhelming. If VMWare continue to concentrate on features the end user doesn't want (that debugging, automation stuff etc. is maybe nice for developers, but not for end users), Parallels Workstation will have its place also on Windows and Linux in my opinion.

 

Hello All,

Upcoming version 3.0 will be out simultaneously on 3 platforms - Win, Lin and Mac and will have equal feature set. So please be patient.

 

That is really great!

 

Now you're talking! Best news I've heard so far!

Titetanium

 

I'm trying to be patient...

I take no joy in what I wrote. I WANT to believe in the parallels team. I DON'T want to pay for VMWare. How patient do we need to be Andrew? I know you can't give a date (I work for a major software company too), but can you give us something? We don't have a beta on the PC side so I assume 3.0 is at least 60 days out. Going 60 more days without being able to setup my server and laptop the way it needs to work is too long.

Something that would be helpful would be some help with my laptop. Please look at the New thread I am about to post and provide help if possible.

Thanks...

 

I just gotta ask and pull this thread up a little: what about that simultaneous 3.0 release for 3 platforms mentioned a few posts earlier?

 

.

Yet another, in the ever growing list of hollow commitments.

Tite,

Why wait another month? You could just as well make your decision now.
.

 

The statement in your quote is still valid, but you have to change version number from 3.0 to 3.x. These plans were delayed for some time because of the competition on Mac market and need to spend additional unexpected resources on Mac version development.

 

Fair enough but what's changed? You still need to devote more resources to MAC development to keep up with Fusion, if not technical certainly marketing and support resources. VMware isn't going to take a time out. I think Parallels looks increasing like a deer caught in the headlights of a speeding monster truck.

And for the people who don't want to shell out for VMware Workstation at $189, why not try VMware Server? It's free. For a comparison of features:
http://www.virtualization.info/lab/VMwareWKS60_vs_VMwareSVR10.pdf

 

rdrtx, seems, you missed point that the next Parallels version will have same base for all platforms. We had to rewrite lot of stuff here to develop the version that is similar on three platforms.

FYI, now we have three different versions but later we will have only one.

So, features that will be released on Mac market will be availble on Windows and Linux too. And in the same time.

I hope, that those fantastic days will come soon. Server version, that was shown on WWDC is based on new codebase. So, dreams will come true without VMware

 

FWIW, I was initially not so happy with parallels. I was running two OS2 VM on a P4 hyperthreaded platform with 2GB memory. Either one or the other VM would always exit with an error after some time (usually about four hours). I updated the hardware (only the hardware) to run with a Core2Duo Quad with 4GB and now both VMs run flawlessly.

VMware was not an option because they don't support OS2, I think with this regard Parallels is currently the only solution.

I'm looking forward to updated version that will support newer kernels out of the box and would especially like to have supported use of physical hard drives.

 

Ynot, seems, you missed the point that VMware has the resources and experience to match or best whatever product you come out with. They'll also match you on cost or better. They got to be where they are today because they are very, very good at what they do. Let's grant Parallels parity with VMware on the technical-features-cost issues across all platforms (which is not the case but let's assume we are at that point), what's going to kill you is bad marketing and support. Do you see lots of people complaining about misleading marketing and non-existent support on their forums? What about here? Most of the complaints about support on the VMware Fusion forum seem to be posted by your former customers explaining why they jumped ship. Dreams will not come true without VMware if you don't fix your support problems.