IT Technology from the Mediterranean | Parallels Malta
Last updated on April 17, 2020
This blogpost was written by Davide Galanti, CEO of Serverlab
The heart of Parallels RAS development is in Malta. I went to meet the development team—here’s what I’ve learned about this solution.
IT technology from the Mediterranean: I visited the Parallels headquarters in Malta, where Parallels® Remote Application Server (RAS) is developed.
Parallels was founded in 1999 in Bellevue, Washington, and specializes in products for the macOS X environment. It has become renowned for its software called Parallels Desktop™ for Mac, which lets users run Windows and macOS X “in parallel” on a single machine.
How did Parallels end up in Malta?
Five years ago, Parallels acquired a group of steadfast Maltese developers who worked in a garage (no, really) on a project called 2X. Their software aimed to allow applications to work remotely on Microsoft Windows servers in order to distribute them on local and geographic networks.
Parallels has transformed that small business into a large division of the company. In just a few years, they have become competitors to big names such as Microsoft, Citrix and VMware by focusing on their unique selling proposition (USP): efficiency.
Parallels: simplicity over complexity
The world of workplace virtualization has always seen manufacturers over-complicating things: complex setups, incomprehensible communication, impenetrable price lists… Starting with the name, Parallels decided to create something completely different, in all the areas where others had failed.
Company legend has it that when the new product was ready (born from the improvement of 2X), they worked to come up with a captivating name that would conjure images of users with laptops on faraway beaches. This was ultimately shut down, with the reasoning that this was a software company, not a travel agency. And so, the name Remote Application Server came to be.
What Parallels RAS brings in terms of simplification is surprising—a single product containing everything you need, that can be used in a range of scenarios:
- Accessing one or more PCs remotely
- Delivering large-scale virtual workstations
- Dematerializing corporate IT on a private datacenter
- Server farm balancing between private datacenters and public clouds such as Microsoft Azure
A single installation kit also provides the secure access portal (gateway), the load balancing system, the virtual print driver to reset the installation of printer drivers and the automatic server creation system.
Today, Parallels employs 800 people with offices in the US, Germany, Russia, France, Japan, China, Spain and Ukraine. The atmosphere in the Maltese division is that of a company that, despite its size, still has the enthusiasm of a small business that’s able to listen to the needs of its customers.
IT Technology and Advantages of Parallels RAS
These days, while Microsoft reinvents cloud computing with the Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) product (available only on Azure), Parallels RAS allows you to put your virtual workstation wherever you want it: on a server already available within your company, in an external datacenter, or in the Amazon, Azure or Google clouds.
It’s also possible to configure virtual sessions in geographical balance depending on the physical location of users when, for example, you want to increase the efficiency of users working on the other side of the world.
Which clients does Parallels RAS most appeal to? In Europe and the US, the client base includes universities, hospitals and businesses, especially those where there is a strong orientation towards bring-your-own-device (BYOD). In Italy, Parallels RAS is preferred by the manufacturing sector and small- to medium- businesses (SMBs), which are able to reduce the costs of managing workstations and freeze investments on PCs.
A detail that particularly struck me is that with Parallels RAS, the cost can always be precisely determined. This differs from, say, Microsoft Azure solutions, where the cost of a cloud migration solution is very difficult to determine before a project begins.
In addition to being in the cloud, Parallels RAS is disarming in its simplicity: there is a single console for all management and configuration.
Parallels does not like to waste its customers’ time. While the Citrix price list has 187,500 lines, the Parallels RAS list has just the one.
Want to find out more about Parallels RAS and IT Technology?
References
Original blogpost | https://www.serverlab.it/2020/01/30/parallels-malta/
IT Technology | https://www.parallels.com/eu/products/ras/remote-application-server/
IT Technology | https://www.serverlab.it/
