Is Parallels taking its' users for granted?

I'm in awe at this thread. First, people are pissed because they bought pre-release software not knowing for sure what the final feature set wold be. Second, because everyone wants something for nothing.

I've been using Parallels for two years, and was thrilled when I got v3 for nothing. A long time has passed, and given the inexpensive upgrade, it's a no-brainer. It's not even on the radar of things I'm going to lose sleep over. All this hate and anger is astonishing.

 

Share how you got Parallels 3 for nothing. Interestingly, version 3 ( a full version, mind you) is not pre-release software. So you appear to be contradicting yourself.

 

Um, because I didn't pay for it? I'm not contradicting anything. I had an arrangement at the time with a particular working situation. Don't tell me what I had.

Seriously, pay for the upgrade, skip out on a nice dinner, and you'll be fine financially. I promise.

 

That's not the point. And it's not a case of wanting something from nothing; the point is that there have been statements from Parallels staff on these forums that particular features would be included within a free 3.x build. What has happened is that they've changed tatics (without notifying anybody first) and stuck them into a major version build.

If they had been a bit more realistic with their development plans and held up their hands to say that they're going to roll them out in a paid-for upgrade, I wouldn't mind so much. But there are plenty of statements here to suggest that they intended to roll out some features for free. Which surely must mean that if they still intend to do this, keeps two branches of development going which must add to the complexity of maintaining the code for these products?

And it's nice that you got version 3 for free. Not all of us have, though. I paid for to go for 2.x to 3.0 having waited around to see what was happening with 64-bit and multi-core support. If they said that those features were to be included in version 4.0 - I would have waited for version 4.0 and paid to upgrade now.

M.

 

Well, I've bought the upgrade. Having had time to play with it, it IS worth paying the £32 for the speed improvements alone. Yes, I AM still hacked off that some features should have made it into 3.x builds much earlier than 4.0, but at the end of the day I just want something that works well. I'd also still say the upgrade between 3.x and 4.0 should have been a little cheaper. I think that would have taken out a bit more of the sting.

 

A multitude of mistakes (or a cacophony of crap?)

Can I suggest that there are several issues here:

1. Staff were promising features before they had been confirmed as being in the builds internally.
2. Existing users have been asked to pay $40 (which somehow is £35 in the UK).

Parallels, perhaps $40 is a little bit too much of a risk for PD3 users (bearing in mind point 1 above).

My take on things would have been to tempt users with a real discount of more than $10 and offer about $15 (or £10) for an upgrade before the end of November.

Now, I think I'll be trialling VMWare, purely because it costs about the same price to move (after a competitive rebate) as it does to upgrade.


Parallels Management, please consider reducing the "reduced" upgrade price.

 

For those (like me) who are seriously considering switching over for real, here's an interesting comparison between both.

If Parallels doesn't look up, there's a strong possibility I'll join my friends as a customer whom Parallels' have themselves pushed away with their failure to deliver promises along with their customer-fleecing ways.

 

Competition makes the world go around. Vmware used to charge so much that it was generally beyond the reach of most people. Your friends here at Parallels released a product years back that "forced" vmware to respond with a product priced the same. Now, Vmware and Parallels have to contend with the free product from Sun. I'm loving the process.

 

First of:
People saying they should get version 4.0 for free simply because 3.0 lacks features is nonsense.

You are entitled to a properly working version op PD3.0, not 4.0.

Second:
Where the HELL can i find an update to PD3.0? Every single link i find now points to PD4.0!

I'm using build 5608, and im looking for a build that will FINALLY let me use Ubuntu with parallels tools (does resolution changing/coherence work at all?)

Any direct download links?

Even clicking 'download' in my Account points me to PD4.0! I guess somebody over at Parallels wasn't to smart when he/she figured they could remove every link to software that should still be supported.

Edit:
By the way, John, the reason people don't really trust/have faith in you is because a lot of times you can say stuff that make people go mad such as this:
http://forum.parallels.com/showpost.php?p=130092&postcount=235
I mean, for crying out loud! You're basically telling people to buy PD4.0 in a PD3.0 support thread!

 

I don't want PD4.0, I just want a proper version of 3.x or my money back. Simple as that.

 

I'm with you on that one.
I got PD3.0 in 2007 so that i can work with Linux, John here kept saying how Ubuntu support was 'right around the corner'... well, we all know how that worked out

 

So out of curiosity, did you buy the product knowing that Ubuntu didn't work?

 

No I did not.

Since support for Linux was advertised on the box I (as so many did) thought Linux was supported.

Only when it didn't work did I find threads on the forums about this problem.

Now, normally i would check the forums for software to see what the problems were, but I was new to the Mac side of life, so I actually thought that when a product says it has X feature, that it would have that feature.

Let's put it this way: you go to a car dealer and see that the new model is coming out! woohoo, nice!
So you approach the salesman and ask him: "Hey, if i order one now, do i get the new model? Or do i have to wait?"
The salesman responds: "Yes, the new model is coming soonâ„¢. The next cars rolling out of the factory are the new ones!"

You respond: "Wow cool! Thanks!" and you happily place the order.

A couple of weeks go by, and you get the call, your car is here! So you go to the dealer only to find out it was the old model!

And you're telling that guy "So out of curiosity, did you buy the product knowing that the new model hadn't actually hit the streets yet?"

A promise from a company is a promise that must be fulfilled.

 

So what exactly didn't work, and was it limited just to Ubuntu? I'm no Linux guy, but I would imagine it'd be really hard to support every flavor of Linux.

Of course, I think Linux users on Mac would be a fringe case anyway, but that's pure speculation on my part based only on the nonsense I read from fanboys who don't want to pay for anything, including expensive Apple hardware.

 

It's not limited to Ubuntu - other Linux distributions are equally affected. SMP support is also not Linux-only; it affects Windows too. And FYI, I have no qualms about paying for something as long as it's a promise delivered. You can see for yourself that there're many promises made that have not been fulfilled.

 

Perhaps, but it has always run Visual Studio and other dev tools more than well, and that's all I ever cared about. Oh, and the classic RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 runs much, much smoother than it ever did in 3.0. I'm likely the only person who cares, but whatever.

 

There are direct links to a newer PD3 that was never officially offered, but seemed to resolve some problems some people were having.

Search the forums for the links.

 

Oh, no no no no. You quite misunderstand the situation. It was believed from posts here on the forum - from Parallels staff themsevles - that version 3.x was to get some of the features that version 4.0 currently has. They would be included in a free update for 3.x users later on. At this point, version 4.0 was NEVER mentioned. This was quite a hook to upgrade to version 3.0 from those that hadn't yet upgraded from version 2.0. And looks what's happened.

I strongly suggest that Parallels development do not try to predict or offer suggestions of features in ANY upcoming build until that particular build is in beta testing or has been released.

M.

 

That being said, now that they have they'd better make good on their promise.

 

Has anyone gotten anything useful out of their 'support' emails? I received a response and the ticket was closed right away. The response was a complete blow off email.