Pros: I've used Parallels, in addition to boot camp, and virtual box. While they all have good points in their favor, boot camp requires you reboot to get to your windows apps, and virtual box, as good as it is, still comes up short on integration. Parallels, though an added cost (which can be a valid consideration for some), integrates very well, and doesn't require me to leave my OSX environment just to use one or another windows app. Especially in coherence mode, the windows app shows up pretty much like any other app in OSX. Plus, it supports the hardware better than the other options (boot camp is good, but again, requires a reboot).

Cons: Not the most inexpensive program, but I got it as a bundle, so it wasn't horrible.

Overall Review: Probably not for everyone, cost can be an issue, but apart from booting into a boot camp type windows session, it's better than the other choices (and you don't have to reboot).

Pros: Works we'll and integrates with the Mac OS seamlessly. The only application I ever ran under Windows XP that didn't work completely was Logitech Alert Security System. The graphic driver for some reason in parallels doesn't work with it. Other than that it's a fantastic product.

Cons: I bought this 3 times over the last 4 years since the old version became incompatible when each release of Mac OS came out. You never get a free upgrade out of this company. The final straw was when you had to upgrade for the last OS in order to use it. And then they released a new version a month later and the upgrade wasn't free. They wanted to you spend another $49.99 for it again. Parallels is a great product but I felt like I was constantly getting ripped off by them. I ended up buying a $40 yard sale dell mini and now use that then I need to run a windows application or I run XP on my system via Virtual Box which is free.

Overall Review: This version like every version will not be compatible with the next Mac OS. You'll have to spend $49.99 to upgrade it in a few months. Wait if you can. It's a nice product but only worth it if you need to run a windows application constantly. If not explore a few product like Virtual Box or wait till the next Mac OS is released

Pros: My old 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo white MacBook left a bad taste in my mouth when it came to running Win7 in a virtual environment. Boot camp was a faster alternative but rebooting to Win7 left OS-X unavailable when running Windows. Not the case with my Core i5 MacBook Pro. I give Parallels it's own desktop in Spaces and I can do a 3 finger swipe to switch back and forth.

Cons: None if you have a Core i5 or i7 Mac.

Overall Review: Between OS-X's native Unix support and Parallels virtualization there is no OS or application that you can't run on your Mac. Storage space is the only limitation when it comes to how many operating systems you can run. Lots of RAM also helps. The more RAM you have the less concurrently running operating systems will slow you down. My mid-2011 MacBook Pro has 16GB of RAM and runs Win7 and Ubuntu Linux virtual machines at the same time without breaking a sweat.

Pros: Parallels has been an excellent means to augment the Mac OS 10.7.2 (Lion). I use it with Windows XP and a very old version ('97 ) of Office. This allows me to check how the Internet Explorer running on XP views my website designs. Also allows me to convert other MS stuff to Mac readable text, etc. I don't need to re-boot or re install any part of the Windows XP and its application. When I recently upgraded to a iMac 27" I migrated everything, expecting to have to re-install Parallels and Windows XP and all the XP stuff, but the Apple Migration tool worked perfectly any migrated all these in working order. Parallels has come a long way to work very smoothly within the Mac.

Cons: None!

Overall Review: If you do web design, this provides assurance that your pages are viewed correctly in all popular web browsers in Mac or Windows.

Pros: Works well with highly restrictive industry specific Windows software.

Cons: None

Overall Review: Parallels allowed me to stop buying inferior hardware, and instead purchase Apple equipment. I am required to use certain industry-specific software packages that require Windows. Now I have the freedom to run those applications flawlessly within OS X.

Pros: Being able to run windows within Mac OS is nice. Being able to run Windows within Mac OS as well as on a PC is great. Installation was very easy the second time.

Cons: Software is expensive. Too expensive. Add to that the cost of a Windows license and it becomes a very costly solution. Couldn't install Windows the first time. An issue related to using a SSD. Installation went fine on a regular hard drive.

Overall Review: Installed bootcamp first and then installed PD7 using my bootcamp installation.

Pros: This software really kicks! Highly recommended if you want to run Windows on a Mac

Cons: I think it only uses one core and 1GB of physical memory... or so the CPU gadget says. Not sure it is reporting the right thing... but it does hit up the disk a lot.

Pros: Installed Win8 RP on it and it just blew my mind. I was surprised at how smooth the process was, it even provided me with Win8 images that I can download and install directly. After Win8 was setup, the integration is absolutely amazing. One of the major things I don't like about Win8 is it doesn't have start menu button anymore, no worries, because Parallels put all the shortcuts to all applications installed in Win8 to your mac launch bar, so now my mac launch bar serves as my start menu for Win8. That is considerate!! Performance is amazing, running Windows applications feels like they run naively on a PC, no stutter no glitches! Starts up and shuts down faster than on a local real machine...

Cons: Not much here really. Sometimes the network sharing says I don't have network connection in Mac, but I actually do. However I can always workaround it by switching the network sharing method couple of times then it fixes itself.