Does Parallels support even exist?

I hear allot of complaints

Your $40 doesn't go that far - that might cover close to maybe 1 hour of attention ever spent on this application by a single employee. Including concept, development, implimentation, support, etc, etc. Do you think your $40 entitles you to countless hours of phone support? That's why support contracts exists for most enterprise level software suites. Like many have posted before, this is v1 product...... a rushed one at that. Even at the now $80 price, this is a bargain. Hell i'd say they should open source the application and just sell support contracts, they'd probably cost more, and parallels would make a hell of allot more than they are now.

Not to be a complete negative ninny, for all those who are looking for a more real time support scenario. I'm really trying to build a good community of users on our new unofficial parallels support channel on irc.freenode.net - we can't always be there because we are simply users, but feel free to drop by and lurk, maybe help if you can.

##parallels
irc.freenode.net
Paragonc

 

I have no idea what irc.freenode.net is or how to access it?

Is it something like MSN and Yahoo?

How do you reach it/use it?

Robin

 

paragonconcept:

Many companies of low priced products DO give (even often good) support! Support has nothing to do with price or company size.

But I read on your message, I get the feeling you are advertising irc. IRC is not to everybodies liking!

 

Everyone who's posted on this thread has a valid point. Support has been slow and not as responsive as our users (or we here at Parallels) would like. As many of you noted, we're a small company that has been blessed with a huge, popular product, and we're a bit short on "support bandwidth."

We are doing our best to scale up support to meet demand and have recently added a few new trained support technicians to help users quickly resolve any issues that they might have run into.

I would like to ask for your continued patience and to let you know that we are well aware of your concerns and that we're doing our best to staff our support team with the right people. We're also revamping our ticket system so that our newly expanded team can more efficiently work through inbound requests.

We're working every single day, not just to make out products better, but to make the entire "Parallels experience" better as well. We are most definitely NOT on vacation!

 

How is this better than the already existing forum we have right here?

Here, the messaging format allows participation at any time from any time zone, whenever people have a chance, probably broadening the range of available expertise, as well as allowing Parallels a chance to see what probalms people are having, and even occasionaly respond.

I've always thought of IRC as a place for people who have lots of free time.

 

.
Ben,

Thanks for that, some people have been troubled by recent events. Others have tried to make the small step to understanding, so your position is not without empathy.

Parallels have always made great efforts for their product and customers. I see that is continuing.

Forums are way better than chat.
.

 

I've been using parallels since the day they released the first Beta...

For what it's worth, Parallels was extremely responsive in fixing and releasing bug fixes with super-fast turn around when the product was really being solidified. A great engineering team IMHO.

At this point, they are a victim of their own sucess... Sales and user base expanding far too rapidly for them to effectively manage. I'm sure Apple's release of the $1,000 MacBook and all the fantastic press has helped (hurt.).

Personally, I'm glad they got the application released as quickily as they did. Even a slightly buggy Parallels with so-so support turn-around times is light-years ahead of the VirtualPC junk we where forced to deal with not very long ago if we needed to run a few XP apps!

 

I aqree on that!

 

Is there any paid support? I am willing to pay for help

 

I think that's "At this point we are the victims of their success..."

Nothing has been intuitive about this product, it is riddled with "issues" and it doesn't support virtualization for all the products needed (Vista being a particularly gaping hole.)

Frankly I'm about ready to single partition install Windows XP so I can run VMWare and run Mac OS X/Vista/Solaris 10 as guest OSes under it!

Sadly most of the issues are with the BIOS they selected. If they had chosen a modern BIOS most of these issues would have been non-existent.

 

.
So scotty, when do you think you will be likely to run OSX as a guest?
.

 

I didn't get a Macbook so I could run another OS instead of OSX as the main OS

 

I actually sent a support question, found the correct answer on the forums, then got what I beleive was an incorrect answer from them a couple days later...

My guess was the guy was shooting though support emails and didn't fully read my email...

I emailed about mouse emulation support (or whatever it's called) for Windows 98, then saw in the forums that this feature is comming in a future release (that linux was considered more important currently). They responded telling me to be sure I had the most current version (which I did)... I got a copy of XP Pro though, so I just ditched my Win 98 since XP seems to do all I wanted anyway...

 

I'm happy.

I, for one, am very happy with Parallels.

I use it most days to access our network test gear interface (Ixia) for use with my software development. I also use it to boot a linux target so that I can cross develop embedded code without having to have a real target.

It's a new product and I think it does very, very well for that.
I'm sure Parallels have a roadmap to fix bugs, implement features etc.

For $40 you get forum support from other users, and personally I wouldn't expect anything more than that.

If you want to pay $4000 you'll get personal support, take if from me, I work for a specialist embedded network company and you get nothing unless you pay 25% support fee (on a 100k order)

There are too many people here that think $40 entitles them to some sort of personalized service and that they can whine on just about every thread about it, those people know who they are.

Forums in general work very well if people contribute and help others. Lets try to make it work that way here.

 

I dont understand the thinking of some people about support on a product.

Heh your logic for support is way off. I dont care if the product cost $1 or $1,000,000... You paid for a product and if the product is not functioning like it should or you have an issue that needs to be resolved then the company that made the product should support it. Not a forum full of memebers who volunteer their time.

Sure they are a small company with a pretty damn nice piece of software, but the support is lacking something terrible and communication is next to nothing.

I see so many people here quick to defend a company who took people's hard earned money for a nice product but turn it to salt from lack of support.

It is a fact of life and business all over the world that if you are to exceed in buiness you have to build it on a solid foundation of support and communication to compliment the product you are selling.

If you feel your product is all that and a bag of chips and you are catering to fortune 500 or above companies then put in a tiered support system like any other business.

If you are selling you product to end users then you better have some sort of support with a small time window to reply back to the user with a response of some kind. If you cant do this, then you need to put it in the license agreement saying hey buy our product but please dont expect any type of support. You buy this software as is.

The product is really nice and it meets a lot needs I have for using a mac in a wintel enviroment and not have to carry around 2 machines all the time due to my choice of OS I want to run.

I read this thread and it is scary the outlook some people have with what they consider is a price on support and what to expect due to the price you paid.

Just my $0.02

 

I've had no problems with Parallels support, and since the program went GA, I haven't had any problems that have required support anyway. People who are dissatisfied because it's not doing things Parallels never claimed it would do aren't having problems with support, but with flawed expectations.

 

Simon has an excellent point here:

Remember what forums are for! They're not the support vehicule for the delevopers, they are a chance for users to discus amongst themselves issues they are having, wants, don't likes etc etc.

If you want support contact support directly. If they don't respond contact them again. Its not THAT difficult.

 

I agree with the guy above a few posts that said for $40 phone support is not PD responsibility.

To those who say other small companies give great support, sure, but do they have a userbase as big as PD currently has and does it involve MS WIndows that allows for 1 jazillion combinations of problems?

Cut these guys a break and be glad it works as well as it does and be glad you have a forum on their site.

Why is everyone on a Mac so desperate to have a full blooded gadget running problem Windows machine on their Mac?

I use AutoCad and print to a 42" DesignJet on my Mac and have not had a problem yet (I need Windows too, but just one little thing). I know, I know! Congratuations to me. However, some of you sound like you want to hook up every freekn gadget known to man on a VM. How about using your Mac for a change on a few things and using Windows for that one or two simple things you can't do on your Mac that you HAVE to do. That last sentence sounds harsh but I mean it nicely, I assure you. Then, wait for the next update and lets see what happens. We have lived without Windows VM like this up till a few months ago, so lets give it a little more time.

If then you are not happy, do like I might do, buy VMWare.

Please do not flame, this post is a "I come in peace".

 

Technically, you have not paid for a product, you have paid for a license to USE a product. There is a difference, read the fine print.

Again, read the fine print, I'm sure that it IS in there. Almost all software gets sold "as is" (according to the license agreement), and that is why some companies make lots of money selling support contracts.

It is not that I don't think your points are valid. Of course I would appreciate a greater presence of Parallels staff on these forums. However, I think that along the continuum of software companies and the support they provide, the support that Parallels has shown so far, and continues to show, are relatively good.

 

.
Well, what sort of support do you get from the giant.

That was ccparallels posting in the "Microsoft WON'T give me a second key!!!!!" thread about an attempt to have the licencing issue with multiple instances of windohs clarified.
.