5 Tips to Successfully Plan for IT Modernization
One of the biggest challenges with bringing Apple into any enterprise is that many organizations still rely on a lot of Windows applications to conduct business. While the rise of software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications has certainly made it easier to employ Apple Macintosh systems in place of a Windows PC, most organizations are still heavily dependent on Windows applications.
Because of that requirement, large numbers of Macintoshes in the enterprise wind up being configured with desktop virtualization software that enables them to run Windows applications.
Aiming to make working across both desktop environments more fluid, Parallels today released Parallels Desktop 12 for Mac, which Parallels says is now 25 percent faster. In addition, Parallels has developed a set of utilities designed to make it simpler to, for example, create a screenshot by clicking on a single icon. Finally, Parallels has announced that it is providing end users with access to up to 500GB of free online storage via an alliance with Acronis.
Nikolay Dobrovolskiy, vice president of desktop virtualization for Parallels, says that Parallels Desktop 12 for Mac is compatible with both existing Macintosh operating systems and the Sierra upgrade that is due out this fall. For the moment, Dobrovolskiy says, it’s clear that while Sierra will bring forward new features that make it simpler to employ multiple Apple devices, Apple is still working on polishing the upgrade.
“Sierra still consumes a lot of CPU cycles,” says Dobrovolskiy.
In the meantime, there are well over 30,000 Windows applications that most users of Apple Macintosh systems in the enterprise still need to be able to access. Given the time, money and effort needed to replace all those applications, it’s unlikely that most of those systems won’t need some form of desktop virtualization software for many years to come.
