Arghh! Did I miss the $49 deal for Parallels?

A rational response...

Petro,

You seem to be missing the point.

I for one whole heartedly support this product and its developers. I also admire them for creating a company to fill the gap in the market and I agree that there is nothing else on the market that does the same thing (yet!) however that shouldn't give Parallels carte blanche to charge what they want. Firstly, we the community did a lot of the Beta testing. Secondly the technology is almost identical to the Linux builds. Therefore how can they charge so much more? The reasoning previously stated was that it included the compressor technology. All I am saying is give the customer the choice, If I want the compressor then I'll by it! However I don't want to have to be forced to pay for something I really don't need.

This approach has nothing to do with market economics because the minute VMWare or Microsoft produce a Mac version of their Server/Player it will be free with many more features than Parallels Desktop. Where will Parallels be then? Remember the good will the community has shown Parallels and vice versa. Why ruin that by forcing us to pay a price that is not reflected in the rest of the range.

Simply put either price all the versions at 49.99 or all of them at 79.99 but don’t do both!

 

Actually, some representatives from Parallels made it very clear when they announced this pricing scheme what was the reason behind it: support. Even though the underlying code base may differ little to none between the Parallels Desktop for Mac and Parallels Workstation for Linux/Windows, the Mac version costs the company much more for which to provide support.

This is because Mac users expect things to "just work" right out of the box, and as soon as they do not, said Mac user will then complain to the company and request support. The average Linux user, on the other hand, is much more likely to spend the time trying to figure things out on their own before posting to a newsgroup for help, and only once all that fails will they go to the company.

(By the way, I am a Mac user myself)

This seems to make sense to me, after all, a copy of Mac OS X operating system costs substantially more than FreeBSD or [blank] Linux distro, and for basically the same reason. Plus, if you want to get technical about it, Parallels are selling two different products: Parallels Workstation (priced at $50) and Parallels Desktop (priced at $80). If the additional $30 is a major hardship, my suggestion would be to install a free Linux distro natively on your Mac and then run Parallels Workstation from within that.

 

FWIW, we only got a MBP two weeks ago and Parallels trial one week ago. I'm sure some did wait for the last day. We'll gladly pay the $79.99 but on the same note if there's a better deal then there is a better deal, and if there is a deal being offered, it should be honored. Also, instead of complaining about people complaining simply join another message thread. No, I didn't think so.

 

I bought Parallels Desktop before I got my MacBook to ensure I would get it at the price... Guess it's a good thing I did, but I did end up forking over the extra $6 for the download thing. It didn't even occur to me at the time that this extra was kind of a waste seeing as you can download the full version without paying for it first...

 

$49.99 Cost

It's real easy to see who was helping from the start. Look at the folks that made posts in the forums about the beta. If you did, then you should be able to get the $49 dollar deal.

Seems easy to me to figure out.

But, from my guess... With all the press that Apple has given them and the sucess of the product, I have no doubt (and is obvious by a lack of posting by them in this topic area) that those that helped them, will be cared about less...

Oh well. From what I hear Vmware is coming out by years end. Hell, their server software is free. Free beats $49 bucs or $79 bucks.

 

Free software often times means it is support free...

It must be that "car wreck" morbid curiosity that made me read this thread, but (I got it for $39.99) even if it had been $79 it would still be worth not needing to boot into XP and lose my OS X tools to do so. Be glad that several folk such as myself lived through a few bumps to get to the 1.0, now that it is here I look forward to the next release because I know it will have a great list of improvements, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth $79 today. And what makes you think VMWare is going to give away the system to allow you to do this for free? They aren't a charity organization or open source project, they are going to want some fee, and rightly so. Free software is typically support free, while I use this software for a business purpose, I paid for it, and I expect some support when it is needed.

I hope VMWare's tool is awesome, because that means Parallels will become even better as well, competition is good for us the users, features are developed to attract our loyalty and attention and we all enjoy better products. If you can't stomach $79 there is always Qemu.

 

There is no way to say what we have is not a good deal. And by the time VMware comes out with theirs, even if free, which I don't understand, Parallels will have 6 more months to add even more stuff too. Sure $40 is better than $80, but I don't see the problem. And $80 seems in line with some Apple pricing if I recall. And if VMware and Apple or MS or anybody else comes out with any more VM stuff, complimentary, complementery, or competitive, hey the more the merrier; it will only suffice to benefit the end users and the platform.

 

Look guys. It's real simple.

Both VMWare and Microsoft offer their server virt products for free for linux and windows host systems. VMware will most likely continue this license model when they port it to OSX sometime this year.

Here are the links since you are not famillar with their license model.

http://www.vmware.com/download/server/
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/default.mspx

My point is that people that were part of the beta period should get the price no matter what. It is easy to prove. If you posted and contributed prior to the deadline, you should get a discount.

I do not care about whether it is $39 or $79. I can easliy afford either. It is about the fact that a lot of people contributed a lot of time to help this company make this a good product. The respect for their efforts should still be there.

 

Hope they bring back the promo. I'm so ready to buy Parallels Desktop for Mac after trying out the RC1 release. Fingers crossed.