Microsoft App-V supports the virtualization of applications, making them available to end users without an installation.
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Parallels Desktop for Mac
Score 8.7 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.
Parallels makes running other operating systems on your Mac user friendly and not have the hassle of some of the server use cases. VMware is the closest competitor I use occationally but for the most part Parallels is what I use for the majority of the time.
Using Microsoft Teams for small or large meetings is a great way to communicate and collaborate. Microsoft Application Virtualization is a terrific tool for presenting and sharing information, and its storage capacity is also excellent. Installing and centrally administering specialized apps to control who has access to it is one of the features I value most about this software. It also provides a separate UI for tracking the app's accesses. This program is not suitable for freelancers or clients that operate alone.
I often get asked, why not the "free" stuff (VirtualBox), and/or why not VMWare. VirtualBox, etc. are not as performant for interactive usage. I think they are fine for small applications, perhaps some enterprise app usage, but for developers, it's not good enough. VMWare has become too enterprisey and lacks some of the user-friendly stuff that Parallels focuses on. Ultimately, for developer types running OSes for deep tasks, Parallels is unrivaled.
File Transfer - You can easily transfer files between Parallels virtualized desktops and the host desktop either through Copy and Paste functionality, or Drag and Drop. You can also configure shared folders.
Switch Between Virtual and Host Desktop - You can configure swipe gestures on a MacBook Pro to be able to switch between the virtualized and host desktop. You can also launch apps from the OS X Taskbar.
Performance - Apps in Parallels run quite smoothly on my 2015 MacBook Pro, as of 2020. Considering they are running on a 5-year-old computer, I give Parallels top marks for performance.
The ability to do snapshots, backups, and other types of branching for VMs is a little confusing and takes a bit to get used to
The Parallels tools frequently pop up windows advertising functionality, while this is helpful at times it can also happen when you are doing a presentation or typing in a password.
Careful using the VMs on a shared cloud drive such as Dropbox or OneDrive, there are hundreds and sometimes thousands of files which are updated when running a VM and this can clog up your Dropbox or OneDrive sync for minutes to hours even on a 2gb connection.
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.
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)
APP-V is no longer a supported technology and is on the way out, only on legacy support at this time. The changes in security emphasis in windows, as well as the changes in software development have meant that APP-V is no longer able to correctly package software. It has been superseded by the MSIX format and distribution via the Microsoft Store for Business.
So, this rating is a little skewed toward older behavior from Parallels, as I haven't had to contact them recently. However, in an older version of Parallels, an "update" included pop-ups urging users to upgrade to the latest version, implying that their current version wouldn't work for the latest MacOS. I found it very frustrating to be getting ads for a new version of the software in a version I had already paid for. I contacted support about this and got a generic, uncaring response. It was pretty disappointing.
Microsoft Teams is included in our current Office 365 product set; therefore, there is no additional fee to use the application. It saves our company money by not having to pay for Slack or another internal chat service. For us, Microsoft Teams has a better user experience and product features. Teams' usability is higher than Slack's since it has access to OneDrive, email, and OneNote applications. Screen sharing, chat, and file-sharing operate smoothly, and the performance appears great.
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.
Avoid extra costs: majority of users have a Mac, so if they needed to dod something that is Windows related, it will require to users have an extra computer to do that tasks, and this have a lot of costs
Developers have more concerns how websites behaves on Windows only browsers, which increased the satisfaction of users
