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Today, Parallels announced the availability of their virtualization software Desktop version 4.0. It has a slew of new features, such as Modality, Smart Mount, 64 bit support and Speech Recognition. It’s also said to be 50% faster than version 3.0. You can buy the package for $79.99, or upgrade from version 3.0 for $39.99.

I’ve been using VMware Fusion now for almost a year, but the new features included in Parallels Desktop 4.0 are tempting me a bit to switch. Here’s the breakdown of why I’m tempted.

• Modality - This feature allows you to scale the virtualization window down. This is not the same as changing the virtualized resolution. Think of picture in picture for computing. This allows you to see multiple virtualized operating systems at once, though the reduced size will also reduce the usability of said VM. Still, this could prove to be useful.
• Smart Mount - Parallels finally listened to its Mom and started sharing nicely. Smart Mount allows you to have an external HDD or other device mounted to OS X and any running VMs at the same time.
• 64 bit support - Now Windows can go from off to BSOD faster than ever before!
• Speech Recognition - The idea of talking to a computer and getting it to do something sounds awesome but never ends up working for me. I feel too dumb talking to my computer, especially when it doesn’t work all of the time. It has to work at least 95% of the time for it to even be an option for me. Right now, I see this as a gimicky feature, but I like the idea, and the technology has to start from somewhere. Maybe in the future this will prove to be amazing.
• iPhone Access - This is a bit deceiving. You can control if a VM is on or not, and that’s pretty much it. Of course, you could already do with if you buy Jaadu for the iPhone which is infinitely more useful.

This seems to be a pretty solid update to Parallels Desktop. I’m still not sure if it’s enough to take me away from VMware Fusion, but I’m thinking about it.

A note to Parallels Desktop 3.0 users. If you purchased your software after September 1, 2008 then you are entitled to a free upgrade. Congrats!

Product [Parallels Desktop 4.0]