Parallels International GmbH is a software company based in Bellevue, Washington. It is involved in the development of virtualization software for MacOS. The company has over 800 employees and offices in 14 countries, including the United States, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Japan, China, Spain, Malta, Australia, and Mauritius[4][5][3]

Quick Facts Company type, Industry ...
Parallels International GmbH
Company typeSubsidiary
IndustryVirtualization
GenreVirtualization and Hosting Automation
Founded1999; 25 years ago (1999)
FounderIlya Zubarev Edit this on Wikidata
HeadquartersBellevue, Washington, United States[1]
ProductsParallels Desktop for Mac
Parallels RAS
Parallels Toolbox
Parallels Access
RevenueUS$100 million (2008)[2]
Number of employees
800+[3]
ParentAlludo
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History

SWSoft, a privately held server automation and virtualization software company, developed software for running data centers, particularly for web-hosting service companies and application service providers.[6] Their Virtuozzo product was an early system-level server virtualization technology, in 2003, they acquired Plesk, a commercial web hosting platform.[7]

SWSoft acquired Parallels, Inc. in 2004, but this information was not made public until January of that year.[8] Parallels Workstation for Windows and Linux 2.0[9] was released in the same year, with Parallels Desktop for Mac following in mid-2006.[10] Later the same year, the corporate headquarters moved from Herndon, Virginia, to Renton, Washington. Historically, their primary development labs were in Moscow and Novosibirsk, Russia. Parallels was founded by Serg Bell, who was born in the former Soviet Union and later immigrated to Singapore.

At Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference 2007 in San Francisco, California, Parallels announced and demonstrated its upcoming Parallels Server for Mac.[11] Parallels Server for Mac allows IT managers to run multiple server operating systems on a single Mac Xserve.[12][13]

In 2007, there were reports of a lawsuit by the German company Netsys GmbH against Parallels' German distributor Avanquest for alleged copyright violation.[citation needed] Parallels Server for Mac was announced at WWDC, and later Parallels Technology Network.[14]

In 2008, SWSoft merged with Parallels to become one company under the Parallels branding,[15] which then acquired ModernGigabyte, LLC.[16][17] Parallels Server for Mac was launched in June,[18] then in September Parallels Desktop 4 for Windows and Linux, a rename of Parallels Workstation for the 4.0 release,[19] and Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac[20] later that year. In the next version, 6.0, the Windows and Linux software became known as Parallels Workstation again.

From 2009 to 2011, the company launched Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac,[21] Parallels Desktop 6 for Mac,[22] Parallels Server for Mac 4.0 Mac mini edition,[23] Parallels Transporter,[24] Parallels Workstation 6 Extreme,[25] Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac,[26] Parallels Mobile for iOS,[27] and Parallels Workstation 6.[28]

During 2012, 2013 and 2014, the company discontinued Parallels Server for Mac, Windows and Linux, launched Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac and Mac Management for Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager, and released Parallels Desktop 10 for Mac.

Parallels acquired 2X Software in February 2015,[29] rebranded their service provider business to Odin,[30] later sold the Odin Service Automation Platform to Ingram Micro.[31] They also released Parallels Mac Management v4.0 for Microsoft SCCM and Parallels Desktop 11 for Mac.

In 2017, Virtuozzo and Plesk, two products from the pre-Parallels history of SWSoft, were spun out.[32][33]

In December 2018, Corel announced that it had acquired Parallels.[34][35]

On October 20, 2020, it was announced that Google had partnered with Parallels to bring Windows applications to enterprises and cloud workers using Chrome Enterprise.[36][37]

On February 17, 2023, Microsoft announced a partnership with Parallels to enable Windows 11 support on Mac computers with M-Series processors using Parallels Desktop 18.[38][39]

Products

References

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