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Parallels 4 is released

Virtualization vendor Parallels has just releasedParallels Desktop 4.0 for the Mac. Parallels Desktop is designed to let users run Windows (or Linux) on your Intel Mac within OS X.

The newest version of Parallels Desktop boasts better performance (Parallels is claiming a 50% increase over Parallels Desktop 3.0), better graphics, support for more OSs and support for up to 8 GB of RAM and 8 CPUs. Like VMWare Fusion 2.0, Parallels Desktop 4.0 also supports OS X 10.5 Leopard Server as a guest OS, and features experimental support for OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

Some of the other stand-out features:

  • Ability to save screenshots across operating systems

  • Remotely manage Windows VMs via the iPhone

  • Direct X 9.0 and OpenGL 2.0 support and support for up to 256 MB of video RAM (you can see a list of supported games here)

  • Parallels Virtual Appliance support

You can check out the full list of new features here. I'm converting my Parallels virtual machine to 4.0 right now and will post more thoughts on Parallels 4.0 and how it stacks up to other virtualization options from VMWare and VirtualBox in the next few days.

Parallels Desktop 4.0 is $79.99 and available now. Existing Parallels customers can upgrade for $39.99 through the end of November. If you purchased Parallels Desktop AFTER September 1, 2008, your upgrade is free.