Until very recently, on the main Parallels website, Parallels Workstation was described as working on all "Intel Macs." In fact, I received a personal email from the Tech Support department stating the same thing when I wrote to inquire why Parallels was not running on my Mac Pro. In the past couple of days, that has been changed to a listing of all the Intel-based Macs--with the exception of the MacPro. So apparently, Parallels has begun to hedge their bets.
Now, based upon the earlier version of the website, would it not be reasonable for the "thinking" Mac user to believe that Parallels would run on his or her Intel-based Mac Pro, and to be rather disturbed if it did not, but instead gave rise to a kernel panic that crashed the machine entirely? Even in the current version of the site, there is considerable ambiguity. The thoughtful user would not necessarily conclude that the program would crash his MacPro altogether.
I realize this may be tiresome to those who actually read my initial post and thought it about it, as Alkalifly suggested, but my point has always been that Parallels should state, prominently and straightforwardly, that the program does not run on the MacPro--yet. Then they could go on to explain that the user can purchase Parallels now, secure that a free update will be forthcoming.
THIS HAS NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH THE EXCELLENCE OF THE PRODUCT, WHICH IS UNQUESTIONED. In fact, it is precisely because the product is so outstanding that it would be a great shame if the company's reputation and financial future were damaged by failing to make so simple a statement.
If I buy a product that is explictly described on running on my machine, and itstead it crashes it, risking damage to my file system, it is hardly just "pissy" to be upset.
Think about it this way--suppose someone were a PC user who had decided to convert to Mac because of Parallels. This is precisely the line that Apple itself has taken in their television advertising. So he goes to the Apple store, spends $2500 on a Mac Pro, another $79 on Parallels, and gets ready to make the migration. He has no reason to think this won't work, because the staff at the Apple store tell him it will, since they were not informed to the contrary. He installs Parallels, and his machine immediately crashes. What does this person now think about Apple? About Parallels? About making a migration?
Now, suppose instead of an individual PC users, you have the head of the MIS department for a major corporation. He is thinking to convert the entire company over to Mac, a matter of 2000 workstations. So he buys a test machine to see if this is a viable solution, and the same thing happens as it did to the individual user--he gets a kernel panic. He calls Apple Tech support, and they refer him to Parallels. He writes to Parallels (since there is no tech support number) and gets a form letter saying "Parallels runs on Intel Macs." So he says to himself, "this is bogus. Even if it is not Apple's fault, and even if Parallels does release a version that runs on the MacPro, I cannot risk my entire company on a product that witholds critical information about the capabilities of its software. This is a mission critical app for me, and if it doesn't work, I cannot make the conversion. So I'm sticking with PC's."
However, brilliant the Parallels design team may be, it is simply stupid to allow this kind of situation to develop, as it actually has if you read other threads in this forum. All it would have taken is a few minutes putting up a disclaimer on the website, and then contacting Apple to have them pass word along to their store staff and "genius's" to tell new MacPro owners to be patient for an immanent update. As I said before, there is no downside to this whatsoever, only an upside.
Just as an historical note, even after IBM introduced the PC, there were 3-4 years when Macs commanded more than 50% of the market and had made major inroads in the corporate setting, which has always been the driver of the computer market because of sheer volume. Perhaps many of you were in diapers then. But some of us were already Macintosh advocates. We were very disappointed when Macs fell increasingly behind. But it wasn't always so.
Last edited: Aug 28, 2006