Parallels has announced that it has begun the beta testing for its Parallels Workstation 2.1 software for Mac OS X. The software allows Mac users to simultaneously run Windows, Linux or any other operating system and their applications alongside Mac OS X on an Intel-powered Apple computer.
The virtualization software allows the running of multiple operating systems in isolated, "virtual machine" sandboxes, directly from the OS X desktop. In
effect this will allow the running of non OS X programs directly from within OS X. Each virtual machine operates exactly like a stand-alone computer and contains its virtual hardware.
"Parallels Workstation for MacOS X gives Mac users a viable virtualization solution that will let them embrace widely-used operating systems like Windows and Linux without having to give up the power, usability and familiarity of their Macintosh," said Benjamin Rudolph, Parallels Marketing Manager in the press release. "This release underscores our commitment to building solutions that anyone, regardless of budget, technology savvy, or operating system can use to improve productivity and platform flexibility."
The solution takes advantage of Apple's inclusion of Intel Core Duo architected chips into all new Macintosh computer models. Because the Intel Core Duo chipset is x86-compatible, the Parallels virtualization engine can easily virtualize the hardware, thus enabling Macintosh users to build virtual machines running nearly any x86-compatible OS, including Windows 3.1-XP/2003, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, OS/2, eComStation, and MS-DOS.
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