astro posted on May 21, 2010 18:05
I have just received a late Friday private briefing from an executive at Seattle-based Parallels regarding its plans to release a widows 7 migration product next week. Parallels is a darling in the Macintosh and the larger virtualization community and you might recall that I crashed its top shelf evening reception in late April at the Microsoft Hosting Summit in Redmond using an expired press pass, but that’s another story entirely! Here’s the scoop on next week’s product release (BTW – I am meeting with Parallels next Wednesday at its Renton, Washington HQ and will file an updated blog with video on this product. I also plan to test this product and write a review soon).
The product is Parallels Desktop Upgrade to Windows 7 and next week the software-only version (without USB transfer cable) will be available for $39.95 USD. The following week the SKU with the USB transfer cable will be available for $49.95. The technology is based on the simple premise that customers are not comfortable migration from Windows XP to Windows 7 with a freshie – a reformat and rebuild! Customers are seeking a migration tool to facilitate this migration to seamlessly move applications, data files, configuration, security and Registry settings. The Windows XP environment pivots via a Parallels Windows OLD file to be “reborn” as a Widows 7 environment.
And what about backwards compatibility with older Windows XP apps that will not or cannot run on Windows 7? Parallels has an answer for that. The technology behind this backwards compatability approach is virtualization.
So why I am a qualified to talk about the new Parallels Widows 7 migration applications? Because in the 4Q2009 SMB PC magazine, I reviewed the PC Mover product from another Seattle-based software company, LapLink. You can read that review HERE and there is also a sidebar about yet another Seattle-based software company called Prowess that has a different paradigm approach using a rapid desktop deployment scenario (SmartDeploy). What I found with PC Mover – which worked well in our lab tests – was it is performing its Widows XP to windows 7 migration via a set of TEMP files in the traditional NTFS storage hierarchy. It did not have a VM-type environment in its product mix.
Needless to say – I’ve been fired up about the Windows XP to Windows 7 migration story ever since my friend and colleague, Seattle-based bestselling author Brian Livingston (Windows Secrets books and
newsletter) tipped me off over 2-years ago (can you say before recession) that the really content and education opportunity was WinXP to Win7. He’s right – that’s the story and we’re sticking to it.
Again – more later on the Parallel’s product next week! And let’s watch how it competes with LapLink’s PC Mover and Prowess’s SmartDeploy.