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Vroom! Parallels Desktop 4.0 Increases Performance

ParallelsPost by Mike DiPetrilloAdd comments

Parallels has just released v4.0 of its Mac desktop product. It looks like most of the new features are clean-ups or improvements over previous versions of the product. The big new feature adds are speech recognition, iPhone access, screen shot utility, and performance. It all sounds nice, but do these things really add enough value to pay for the upgrade again?

Pre-built voice commands to control Parallels sounds interesting but is this really useful? How many people out there use voice commands to control their Mac on a daily basis? Besides, it took about 5 minutes to setup the same speech commands by hand to control VMware Fusion. Not sure how much value is really packed into this “feature”.

iPhone access is also a neat little thing but again I question the value. In order to really do anything you’d want to be sitting in front of your Mac so are you really going to pick up your iPhone to start or stop the VM you want are would you just click on the app with the mouse that’s probably closer to you than your iPhone?

A screen shot utility also seems like a little overkill. Why not just hit Apple-Shift-4 and use the built-in screen shot utility built into Mac OSX? I’ve used it to do screen shots of VMs hundreds of times with no issues. Do we really need to upgrade to get this?

Now we’re down to the 50% performance boost they claim with v4.0. Parallels claims support for Intel VT-x2 for the performance boost.

 

 

Now if only Intel VT-x2 (an outdated name) was available with shipping Macs. The technology is only available in Intel Nehalem processors which won’t start showing up in Macs until mid-to-late 2009. This performance claim is sort of like saying “hey, you’ll get a 50% performance boost for your car with this shinny new gear shift knob…huh?…yeah, it will look great in the Ferrari you buy next year”. So after you buy your nice, new, faster Mac next year you’ll get the performance boost that Parallels is promising you today.

Overall is this worth the $40 upgrade? Not so sure about that. This brings up the last issue – why is Parallels still charging for all of these upgrades? If you’ve been a Parallels user since day 1 and you’ve jumped on the reduced price upgrades you would have paid $40 + $40 + $40 = $120. VMware Fusion on the other hand would have cost you $40 and that’s it. All of the upgrades for Fusion have been free to date. And if you look at all of the stuff on the Parallels site the same features (including the future 50% performance boost from Intel VT-x2) are included in VMware Fusion today. So if you’re going for bang for the buck VMware Fusion is a much better buy. Yes, I’m biased here, but the numbers and feature sets speak for themselves.

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  • That ridiculous 50% claim really chaps my hide.

    As someone who's responsible for outbound marketing for technology, it's so frustrating to see people like Parallels trying to hide the ball from their users by throwing around sexy buzzwords like "VT-x2." Because, later, when users realize that it's not in the product, they mistrust *all* technology marketers. Parallels is pissing in the pool for all of us.

    First, VMware Fusion has had support for this technology, actually termed "Extended Page Tables" or "EPT" by Intel, since VMware Fusion 2 Beta 2. Did we trumpet it? No, because there aren't any Macs that SUPPORT it shipping today. And probably not for a year or more.

    But the folks over at Parallels are *banking* on the fact that their users won't know what VT-x2 or EPT or whatever is, and won't read the fine print.

    I think that's the fundamental difference between how the VMware Fusion team views their interaction with the users: as one of education and assistance, as opposed to Parallels, who clearly are in it to deceive their would-be users enough to get their credit card out, only to have them be disappointed later.

    We've seen it so many times before too!

    Before they had support for 64-bit guest OSes, their website would say, vaguely, "64-bit support" when it just meant that Parallels could run on top of 64-bit Leopard, hoping that users would think they could run 64-bit VMs.

    This is a great thread in their forums where their users are absolutely blasting them for lying about features that were promised in Parallels 2.5, and they had to pay for in an upgrade to 3, and then features that were promised for 3 and are now only going into 4: http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?s=c11...

    It's like "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on you." The problem is, that there are so many new Mac users looking to run Windows on the Mac, that many of them don't realize that Parallels has this track record of user abuse.

    That thread reads like a laundry list of broken promises and customer deception. I would encourage anyone thinking about doing business with Parallels to check it out--whether for their Mac, in their datacenter, or anywhere.
  • Zaphod
    Mike,
    I don't know if you even recognize it but with defensive rants like this one you are destroying your own credibility and crediblity of VMware - by association. I am deciding between upgrading to PD4 or switching to Fusion2. Fusion2 is a free upgrade - sure. But as the majority of WinOnMac people, I use Parallels, not Fusion, so for me it's twice as cheap to stay with Parallels ($30 mail-in rebate??? are you kidding??? am I so unappreciative of my time to waste it on aplying for mail-in rebates???). Also, unlike Linux and most of the PC folks, we Mac users are willing to pay for better experience - that's the point of Mac. Not features per se, not performance benchmarks - I could care less about VTx-2, EPT or whatever, despite that I'm perfectly aware what they are and how they work. I want seamless integraion of Windows into MacOS, and that's what I'm paying for.
    Before reading your post, I was actually leaning towards Fusion, but thanks to you, I'll probably go with Parallels. Reason? If VMware employee gets so defensive and rushes to trash competitor's product without making a single factual argument, the competitor's product is probably good. Sure, marketing statements like "50% faster" are meaningless - that's why it's called markeitng, and VMware marketing is just the same. Picking on the marketing fluff is actually way more stupid that the marketing fluff itself.
    I mean, seriously, dude - have you even installed PD4? Give me a single number - say that you compared PD4 and Fusion2 using some sort of metric - even some meaningles synthetic micro-benchmark would be better than nothing - and show me the results. Even if I think that the metric is meaningless, perhaps some adolescent geeks will find it useful.
    So, perhaps you could go back to your Mac, install PD4 and convince me with some facts/numbers that going with Fusion2 is better than staying with Parllels???
  • Zaphod,

    Everyone is entitled to their opinion. The point of this blog was to point out the fact that one of the major features getting picked up in nearly every article about PD4 (the 50% performance boost) is in fact a sham. If you've been reading my blog long enough then you know that I'll call other companies out when they pull crap like this. I expect the same in return. If you find that VMware is pitching features in products that aren't even available for years to come then call them on it. There's actually laws here in the US from the SEC that prohibits companies from recognizing revenue for any product where you pitch a feature and then don't deliver on it. You're not allowed to recognize the revenue on your balance sheets until that feature is actually delivered to market. This begs the question of what Parallels is going to do with the money you're going to give them now.

    At any rate, if I have offended you I'm sorry. I would ask 2 things:

    1) Go download Fusion and PD4 and do an honest comparison. I'm pretty confident you'll choose Fusion. If you really are looking for the best integration of Mac and Windows with the most stable and highest performing app then Fusion should win that hands down. Yes, I have installed every single version of Parallels and put them through their paces. Every time I uninstall Parallels my Mac thanks me. Things are more stable, other apps hang less, etc. It's not just me. Go look at the Parallels forums and you'll see hundreds of cases of this.

    2) Stop and read the disclaimer in the top right of every page on this blog. This is a personal blog with my own thoughts and opinions. Nothing here is official word or the thoughts of my employer. If you don't like the content here then don't read it. You can go back and read the pro-Parallels blogs or whatever else you're interested in. What you're going to find here are thoughts straight from me. I'll call people out where necessary. I'll talk about what I'm seeing in the industry. And from time to time I may just rant. That's my prerogative and a lot of readers just like it.

    I wish you the best in your use of whichever product you choose. Just make sure you know what you're paying the $40 for (again).

    P.S. Do you really not take the time to fill out mail in rebates? That's enough to make my opinion.
  • Leto from Parallels here,
    I came across this article and couldn't help but notice how one-sided it was against Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac. Of course, then I noticed your disclaimer saying you happen to work at VMware. You then end this blog post by stating there are some sort of numbers that support your opinion, yet I don't see any shown here.

    Zaphod has a good point in saying your article sounds extremely defensive on the side of VMware as a whole. While reading it I wonder whether or not you actually installed Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac on your own computer. The screen shot you provided seems to have been taken from our website, and you basically just went down our list of features in our product section when describing the program.

    You do clearly admit that you're biased, and as a service to your readers I would suggest they try both products before making a purchase decision. I think you should do the same:
    The newly released version of Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac can be found at www.Parallels.com on a free trial basis. The trial has all the features and functionality of the full version, simply for a limited time. It also gives you the ability to back up existing data before making the conversion.
  • Leto,

    Thanks for writing. I really don't understand why you all are having such problems with this. Yes this is one sided because it's my blog and I like VMware. You have issue with that then go find the Parallels slanted views. The whole purpose of this post was to point out that there's little value in the upgrade that you have to pay for yet again. It's also to point out that some of the features you're claiming in the product aren't actually useful until supporting chips start shipping late next year. That was the screen snippet by the way - the performance claim. And lastly, yes I **had** Parallels on my machine for a couple of days and removed it after it made my Mac hang the second time. Just like you writing stuff here defending your product I will defend the VMware side as well. That's out prerogatives. Best of luck to you. Maybe you can get back some of the customers you lost with Parallels Desktop 3.
  • Chad Etsell
    Whether or not Macs have VT-x2 in them or not, the 50% faster claim can still be valid. Parallels 4 is much faster than 3.0, whether the correctly terminology was used or not.
    Also, your comparison to a ferrari and a shifter shows just how biased you are. A correct comparison would be more like an exhaust system that is optimized for the turbo setup you haven't installed yet.
  • Chad,

    Make sure you pay attention to the picture in the post above. It was taken directly off the Parallels site. That's where they state 50% performance and then say it's because of VT-x2 support. Reading is fundamental.
  • Matthew
    @Chad

    Many people on the Parallels Forum wouldn't agree with you.
  • Chad Etsell
    Matthew,

    How many people are going to go to the forums to say "it's great!" ?

    Mike,

    I don't know why they depend so much on VT-x2, that is indeed curious. But my point stands: that there are valid performance gains.
  • Matthew
    OK Chad, it's a fair point. However, looking through the Fusion forum, although there are several complaints/errors there's nothing like the remarks you see on the Parallels forum.

    50% speed increase from *code only*, do you really believe that?

    Fine, there may be speed increases but for Parallels to claim 50% and then mention the fact that its on newer gen processors, that's just...not right.
  • Well, this confirms my point exactly. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/24/paralle...
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