From our humble beginnings as a small startup, we envisioned and created solutions for virtualized computing. Our constant focus on innovating better customer experiences generated dozens of industry firsts, which were introduced with every new product release over the years. Today, the Parallels family of software solutions make it simpler than ever to securely run the applications you need on any device—anytime, anywhere.

This unrivaled leadership in innovation began in 2006 with the introduction of mainstream virtualization on Mac® computers; we utilized the Apple®-Intel architecture to create Parallels Desktop® for Mac.

Figure 1: First ever released version of Parallels Desktop for Mac

This innovation has continued thanks to all our employees, partners, and customers who make Parallels the success it is today!

Now, Parallels continues to operate independently as part of the Corel family of software brands—so it’s business as usual for our team, partners, and customers. Corel’s plans for significant investments in Parallels will enable us to accelerate our work at innovating software solutions that benefit businesses and consumers worldwide. Although I can’t share details yet, we look forward to delivering brand-new Parallels software in 2019, as well as further enhancing the features and performance of our family of quality software solutions.

As we integrate our businesses, our #1 priority is continuing to deliver the best-quality products and services for our customers. With Parallels being an independent business unit of Corel, this is an easy, business-as-usual transition. We’re learning each other’s best practices, sharing technologies, and leveraging our strengths to accelerate profitable growth that benefits our customers.

Figure 2: Corel and Parallels employees at the Parallels Partner Conference in Malta in March 2019

We would like to say thank you to our entire community for being part of the Parallels evolution and we look forward to continuing our innovations as part of the Corel family.

Check out the latest and greatest Parallels solutions for business and home. Download free trials and experience how easy it can be to save time and be more productive from any device.

Best,

Nick

Co-founder and Vice President of Parallels

The post Parallels Innovations Continue as Part of the Corel Family appeared first on Parallels Blog.

I haven’t been reluctant to criticize Apple® when that criticism is warranted. To be fair, then, I shouldn’t hesitate to praise Apple when praise is warranted. So here I’ll praise Apple for the Find My iPhone feature.

While on a trip to Barcelona, my iPhone® XS Max was lost—or probably more accurately, was stolen. Luckily, I had enabled Find My iPhone. (Figure 1).

Figure 1_ Find My iPhone

Using my iPad®, I was able to locate my phone and play sounds on it, hoping any colleagues still at the restaurant could locate it if I had left it there. Unfortunately, they heard nothing.

Then I was actually able to see that my iPhone was in motion, at a pace that suggested a person walking, near the restaurant where I had dinner. So I knew that someone had my phone and was walking away with it. Following guidance from Apple, I marked the phone as “lost,” thus locking it and putting my contact information on the screen. I kept playing sounds on it and gathered the information I would need to make a police report.

Marking a phone as “lost” locks it and disables Apple Pay®. A locked phone can’t even be reformatted by anyone. Only my Apple ID® password could unlock it. It was no longer an expensive phone that could be “fenced” by a thief—it was just a nice looking, 8-oz. paperweight.

I did not, however, follow the last piece of guidance from Apple: remotely erase the phone. If I did this, I would lose the ability to track it.

Just as I was about to head off to the nearest police station to file a stolen phone report, someone used the contact information on its screen to contact the front desk of the hotel I was staying in. The front-desk clerk guessed that the thief had discarded the nice-looking but now worthless paperweight, and a Good Samaritan had found it and called the hotel.

This fantastic clerk contacted a local delivery service to pick the phone up and deliver it to the hotel. The Good Samaritan wanted no reward and only asked that I “pay it forward” by doing some future good deed to a person in need.

After a wait of only an hour, I paid the delivery service about €8—and I had my phone back. I unlocked it with my password, and everything was as before. I was one lucky guy.

The moral of this story:

• The “Find My iPhone” feature is great, and Apple should be justly praised for their work. By turning my expensive iPhone into a worthless paperweight, the thief discarded it, which eventually enabled its recovery.
• If you haven’t done so already, enable Find My iPhone on your iPhone and iPad. This only takes a few seconds and costs nothing. The feature really works, and it sure saved me.
• There are good people in this world, with the unnamed Good Samaritan and the front-desk clerk as prime examples.

Did something similar happen to you too and Find My iPhone saved you? Let us know in the below comments, on Twitter or Facebook.

The post How Find My iPhone Saved Me appeared first on Parallels Blog.

If you were to type the word “Malta” into a search engine, you would find thousands of idyllic images of a beautiful, Mediterranean island—the ideal holiday destination for many.

Luckily for us, Malta is also one of the countries that houses a Parallels office. Unfortunately, wherever there are people, there is garbage, and a country that sees millions of tourists every year can accumulate a lot of garbage.

Our Malta-based Parallels office employs a diverse team, but all of us hold the wellbeing of the environment in high regard. So when the opportunity for us to join the #maltacleanup project arose, we gladly responded.

Joining with the We CAN IT team, we helped clean up one of the wilder parts of the island: Pembroke, a seaside retreat for many tourists and locals. For more than five years, this team has helped save Malta from dirt and debris.

Our volunteers started the day early in the morning, and at 10:30 we joined the other volunteers at the gathering site. After a short briefing and a distribution of cleaning props and tools, the Parallels team set to work cleaning up the bay and its surrounding area. Even Parallels president Jack Zubarev and Parallels vice president Nikolai Dobrovolsky joined the cleaning effort.

At the end of the day, our team managed to collect several garbage bags full of trash.

To our surprise, apart from the bottles, bags, and piles of plastic, we also happened upon several condom wrappers and boxes, so, with great creative flair, we concluded our work day by creating this sculpture. We call it “From Malta with Love.”

After a long day of hard work, Pembroke was a little bit cleaner, and the Maltese garigue was a little bit closer to its picture-perfect search engine photos—just another day at work for the Parallels team!

The post The Parallels Team Participates in the Global Clean Up appeared first on Parallels Blog.

Check it out—Scott Patterson, Assistant Editor of Education Technology Solutions in Australia, recently interviewed Parallels’ own Kevin Greely. Read their conversation, discussing the ‘School of the Future’, BYOD, and more emerging trends in technology:

Based on what you are seeing, what does the ‘School of the Future’ look like?

Kevin, Parallels: I’m 20 years out of school, and I am amazed by what has changed and equally by what hasn’t. I look at it this way: kids need to be prepared for the world they’ll face; the world that they will have capacity to change and improve. Students thrive when they have access to stimulating content and inspirational up-to-date information and learning aids. That’s part of the equation. All the new technology and ways of helping students understand needs to be complemented by passionate—and importantly, well-rewarded—educators.

The ideal ‘School of the Future’ will be more collaborative, communicative, socially “plugged-in” and most importantly mobile. With great emerging technologies like 3D printing and VR, educators will find it easier to lead students to understand more and be excited by more.

From a technology standpoint, it makes sense for schools to ensure they aren’t driving themselves into a siding. This is a risk many are seeing as they make decisions on what hardware or software to stake their rolling future on.

Computing in the Education Sector—what’s changed?

Kevin, Parallels: Many students and teachers are using devices now, so the amount has increased. Well, it’s all over the place in terms of the array of devices being used—iPads, laptops, netbooks, Chromebooks, tablets. And that’s fine as long as they can all use the same content.

I think the most important change has been around mobility. Many schools still have a long way to go in terms of speed of access to data, but it’s pretty amazing what we can do even now.

For desktop hardware, changes have been driven mainly by funding concerns. BYOD has great financial advantage but can be troublesome if some of the devices are not compatible with software being used.

  Parallels’ Kevin Greely, Account Manager in Australia. 

Computing in the Education Sector—what hasn’t changed?

Kevin, Parallels: What hasn’t changed: Students’ capacity to learn, educators’ capacity to teach.

When I speak to schools about their current environment and what they are doing, there is still a heavyweight use of Windows and Windows-compatible apps.

We still have the PC and Mac divide, though we are seeing a lot more Macs being used now. Schools tell me that it’s the better Apple hardware that attracts them to Mac. The very smart ones tell me that this is also because they can run Windows on these Macs simultaneously using Parallels Desktop. A very effective BYOD approach might restrict to Windows and Mac.

Computing in the Education Sector—what needs to change?

Kevin, Parallels: Our mission at Parallels is to provide the best technology and experience for businesses, employees and individuals to access and use any applications and files on any device, anywhere, anytime. In a utopian world, everything would be compatible with everything else. It’s simple! But it’s just not realistic.

So…we have a technology in Parallels Desktop 10 for Mac, that allows you to run Windows on Mac—both at the same time, fully-integrated, fast…and it’s beautiful! You’ll have Windows working on a Mac better than it does on a PC. So you have the best of both worlds. For schools that need students to have Windows on their laptops (and that’s most schools), we have a great solution that doesn’t restrict them to needing a PC. They can bring a Mac to school with Windows on it. We also have a 50% educational discount, whether it’s for one Mac or many.

Parallels’ Kevin Greely, Account Manager in Australia.

With our Parallels Access product, you can gain full access to PCs and Macs from your iPhone, iPad, or Android device. You can actually run Photoshop or AutoCAD from your phone, with all the actual work being done in real-time on your PC or Mac somewhere else in the world.

Parallels can really help this incompatibility issue to taking away the headache of it all—at least regarding the Windows or Mac debate. Have both and have it all!

The post Employee Interview: Five Minutes with Parallels’ Kevin Greely appeared first on Parallels Blog.