Action1 is an autonomous endpoint management platform that is cloud-native, scalable, and configurable in 5 minutes. It is free for the first 200 endpoints, with no functional limits. By pioneering autonomous OS and third-party patching - AEM’s foundational use case - through peer-to-peer patch distribution and real-time vulnerability assessment without needing a VPN, it eliminates costly, time-consuming routine labor, preempts ransomware and security risks, and protects the digital…
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Parallels Desktop for Mac
Score 9.0 out of 10
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Parallels® Desktop for Mac is used to run Windows on Intel or Apple silicon. Users can switch between Mac and Windows applications, while retaining the macOS appearance, or use the familiar Windows desktop aesthetic.
If your organization is like mine (nonprofit and tight budget) this product is for you. The first 200 endpoints are free and being we are a small organization, this product is perfect for us. I was able to use Action1 to upgrade all my endpoints from Windows 10 to 11 pretty much effortlessly. If you are not a nonprofit and have more endpoints over 200, this is still a great product to use as I don't find it very expensive to incorporate into your infrastructure.
Parallels is great for an end user that is primarily a macOS user, but occasionally needs Windows access to a specific application or service that is Windows only, or Windows primarily. It obviates the need for multiple desktop units or remote VMs where spin up time is an issue. It is not quite perfect due to the ARM version of Windows requirement, but that particular case is common to all ARM use of Windows.
Easy remote access to devices. That simple. We have some very unskilled users in the field where asking them to access their PC via conventional remote tools like TeamViewer, Anydesk, etc. was always a pain. Now, all they have to do is ensure their PC is online, and we can connect to them.
Remote software deploy. Before Action1, we did have some GPOs and scripts, but again - being able to deploy to PCs outside of our office/LAN, is just beautiful. On top of the standard repository, being able to create new packages is very useful for our scenario.
Inventory Reporting. Recently we had to identify PCs running old versions of Windows. Can't highlight enough how easy it is.
The deployment screens for update deferrals can be hard to understand at first and easy to skip since it carries some default info when you create a new automation rather than a more conspicuous prompt to update.
Users are familiar with the application which will keep us going for a little while. However since we are seeing a decline for a need for the software, I wouldn't be surprised to find that this answer changes dramatically in the near future. We would probably keep it to some extent, but we would probably reduce our licensing count.
Action1 has taken many of the tasks that are time consuming and made them simple automated tasks that can be run on a schedule. I can schedule tasks to run off-hours and know that they will be done and I no longer have worry about it. As someone who does IT support for a living, it just makes my job so much simpler with less stress.
It has a good integration, including the connection of peripherals. Taking files back and forth works well and I can attach my Home drive as a network drive in Windows. There is even integration with iCloud and other macOS services. There are also a few different display modes which are useful and fleixible (coherence, windowed, full-screen with multiple screens)
The Parallels documentation and support websites are great. I have not had much use for them, but a cursory check shows richly documented features aimed at both the layperson and the power user or software developer. Their website is well-designed and information is easy to find, and their list of known issues as well as bugfixes on point releases is clear and transparent. They aren't trying to hide any of the limitations of their software, and seem to be regularly updating it to fix new bugs that arise with Mac OS X updates.
After looking at different solutions, Action1 [Cloud Remote Monitoring and Management Solution] was the perfect fit for us that delivered all of the features we wanted without being as costly as some of the others alternatives we've looked at. There was no minimum endpoint count and they even offer up to 50 endpoints for free, which is really great for a small organization like us to help us lower our starting costs and still allows us to grow at our pace without having to commit to a defined amount of endpoints to start.
Main two features that made the balance decission go to the Parallels Desktop were the possibility to pause the Windows partition easily (allowing to consume less resources in Mac and save battery) and the other one is the user interface feature called "Coherence" with allows you to show the Windows application windows as if they were native to the macOS, allowing for a better user experience.
Saved hours per week on patching and able to ensure a 100% patching success rate.
Able to create custom alerting on potential problems as well as able to create some automation to automatically address problems.
Improved support to our remote locations and users.
Custom deployments allow us to have a mechanism to deploy custom applications we build as well as other third party applications we need to distribute.
Saves money on having to buy a Windows and MacBook, as the MacBook can run almost 99% of all Windows software and usually run it faster and share between your MacBook transparently.
Gives employers the most flexibility with regards to which OS to adopt across an enterprise
We are a media company and everyone uses Macs in our industry, Fortune 500 companies also use Windows and MS Project, Parallels gives you the most flexibility for almost all of these use cases
Improves efficiency as the MacBook Pro M3 systems are much faster than some of the fastest corporate issued Windows laptops. What takes me 3-10 seconds for a video export can take 5 minutes on a similar Windows laptop
