Parallels has won a MacWorld Editors Choice award for Parallels Desktop on Mac OS X. It’s an obvious choice for the award as Parallels is easily one of the most important pieces of Mac software released this year. So congratulations to the folks at Parallels, it’s yet another kudo for what has to have been a wild ride of a year for those guys.
The Parallels case is actually a really interesting situation to look at. Prior to the beginning of this year I don’t know anyone who had even heard of them. They were very much an also ran in the Windows and Linux virtualization markets thanks to the dominance of VMWare. But VMWare made a pretty interesting mistake when Apple announced that Mac OS X was being ported to Intel CPUs. Typically the Mac market doesn’t reward companies for quick ports of products from other platforms. Mac users like to see a Mac specific user interface that’s very focused on usability and generally staying out of the users way. This is considered a critical element of what makes the Mac experience so pleasant when compared to the more dominant platforms. However, in the case of Parallels, there was so much pent up demand for what the product does it just didn’t matter that it was a simple port from another platform. It worked well enough, in fact it simply worked, and in a rare case for the Mac, that’s all the market really required. The end result? Parallels has taken off. In fact, it’s pretty much become standard equipment for owners of Intel based Macs.
In contrast, VMWare took what is usually the commendable and correct route for developing a Mac product, they started out by building a Mac specific user interface from scratch. Normally that’s what the Mac market likes to see, but in this case it wasn’t really necessary and it really looks like it’s going to cost VMWare the Macintosh market. Plus, in an interesting twist, Parallels in now ahead in Mac UI integration and isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. The Mac is everything to them, whereas to VMWare it’s just a niche platform. I’m in the beta program for VMWare Fusion on the Mac and it’s a long way from being ready. By the time it reaches final release, Parallels will have an even more advanced version out that will gain much of what was missing on a UI level from the initial releases.
Virtualization on the Mac is an interesting area because it had one very solid killer app, running Windows applications without rebooting. VMWare failed to realize the importance of this and the level of demand that was being created. The switch to Intel chips was a critical juncture for the Mac and having a solid way to continue using the few Windows apps that people required was essential to enable switching. Parallels filled that need well enough and has been rewarded.
They now own the Mac virtualization market and while it may be a niche market, the level of penetration of virtualization among the user base is vastly higher than it is for Windows users. Again that whole killer app thing. On Windows, there’s really little reason for the average user to take any interest in virtualization, but on the Mac, it’s a critical element for stepping away from that which came before. It represents freedom, and makes an Intel based Mac the single most powerful machine you can own. Parallels is riding that wave and VMWare has missed an opportunity that could prove more costly than they realize.
So again, congratulations to the folks at Parallels. I and every other Mac user I know, truly appreciate the gamble you took on the Mac market. I’m thrilled to see you rewarded for it.
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Interesting take on the situation. I’m not sure I share your point of view though: I have heard the demise of VMware for the last 8 years. VMware has done everything right so far. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a very clever Mac strategy in the bag.
You write that Parallels stole the Mac virtualization market. I don’t think so. They are only known to the early adopters of Intel Macs. Only a tiny fraction of the Mac people have upgraded to Intel so far. I think VMware will be right on time to steal the lion’s share of that new market.
Even if you are right, and they stole everything. We are talking about a market as small as the Linux market (about 6% of all workstations). I don’t think VMware really cares. It might seem like Parallels has taken off when they made 50 millions this year with their product (and I’m being generous, assuming they sold a million copies of their software). But let’s put things in perspective: VMware will be a billion dollar software company in 2007. Read that last sentence again. How many such companies do you know?
VMware makes all of its money on the server. Make no mistake: VMware’s competition is not coming from Parallels, Russia. It is coming from Microsoft, Redmond. Until Parallels starts building their server product that is (haven’t they announced one?). But when they start doing so, it will slow down the development of their desktop product. You cannot have it both ways.
Parallels has a _long_ way to go before it can be considered a reliable virtualization solution. They have no support for 64-bit guests, no support for SMP virtual machines, no support for large memory virtual machines, no guest support for Linux or Solaris, poor USB support, inferior performance (at least on Linux and Windows, I haven’t compared on Mac OS yet obviously)…
As a Mac zealot, I care about buying quality products: I want the real deal. I have tolerated the use of Parallels for a while because there was nothing else. But as soon as VMware releases their beta 1 (scheduled before the end of year 2006), I’ll switch to it. I just hope the final product will be properly priced. I expect to see a lot of Parallels early adopters to do the same.
I’m certainly not suggesting that VMWare is in any kind of trouble. They have great products and there’s nothing out there that even comes close to VMWare Virtual Infrastructure in the data center. In fact I’m a huge fan of VMWare so I’m actually pretty disappointed with what I consider a misstep on the Mac. I hope you’re right and they do have something great planned, although looking at the current beta I’m pretty skeptical.
Also as far as your criticisms of Parallels on the Mac go, the reality is that none of those points really matter all that much to the vast majority of users. Mac users are predominantly using Parallels to run 32 bit Windows and with that, just a few applications that don’t have good options on the Mac yet. For that purpose there’s little need for anything else and Parallels is “good enough”. That’s my point, and that’s why VMWare really has missed the market. They may eventually emerge with a vastly superior product, they certainly have the technology to do it, but at the end of the day it also may not matter that much.
Finally my comments are specific to the Mac market only, I’m not saying anything about Virtualization on Windows, Linux or within the data center and I’m also not saying that Parallels has better technology than VMWare. I simply find it interesting to look at how things are playing out and to examine how different approaches affect success in the marketplace.
You are not looking at VMware’s current beta. You are looking at what they call a “friends and family” release, which is more like what other people call an alpha. Of course if you compare that to Parallels’ released product, you can only be disappointed. But that is not a fair comparison. Once VMware has releases their product, then it will be time to compare.
I’m also on the VMware friend and family program. While the alpha version does have many glitches, I think the final product will look very attractive to the Mac market: it has a native Cocoa UI (some people will make their choice just based on that), which is extremely simple to use: no bells and whistles, no fuss, no technical jargon. It just works.
Interesting enough, Fission (VMWare client for the Mac) is officially out with a beta build that runs a virtual Windows XP just like Virtual PC used to run Windows XP 3 years ago, SLOW!. They say is because of the logging enabled in this build, but come on! -is that some kind of sick joke?… I haven’t been so disappointed since the first “beta” builds of Vista.
Ironically, I have heard from very trustworthy sources inside VMWare (who I do not believe are expressing bitter grapes) that Parallels is based almost entirely on stolen VMWare code, to the point that a lot of functions and variables have identical names between the two products. According to these sources, they’re extremely frustrated because the company is based out of Russia, so there’s essentially nothing they can do to litigate.
I don’t know how true this accusation is, especially considering that Parallels has offices in Renton, WA, and does business out of the U.S., but it raises eyebrows and I’d like to see it investigated a bit more closely.
That said, I use both VMWare and Parallels in my work, and I’ve come to really like both products.