For a few months the thought of switching to VMware Fusion for my windows virtualization needs has been on my mind. In fact the only reason I had not switched was due to not wanting to spend another $80 on a piece of software which I don’t use all that often.

But today I was sent a marketing email via Parallels announcing the Parallels Desktop for mac 4.0 update. The update looked pretty good, maybe even bringing Parallels desktop back up to a competitive plane with VMware Fusion, but at the bottom line they wanted $40 to get all the new bells and whistles.

Now I already spent $80 originally on this app at version 2.0. Then only 2 months afterwards, due to some very specific needs, I spent another $40 to upgrade to version 3. This time around I just can not justify giving Parallels more money. Don’t get my wrong, I am not trying to be cheap. But why is it that Parallels, who writes less stable software than VMware, is not willing to upgrade their clients for free while VMware is? I just can’t justify regularly spending money to upgrade an inferior product, when a stronger product exists that will not require update fees.

This was nonetheless the last straw for me. I am now looking forward to more stable virtualization, free upgrades (hopefully), and better linux virtualization. Wish me luck - I’m currently importing one of my old Parallels vms into Fusion. :)