I have been using Parallels for many years. It started out when I switched from PC's to Mac's and had some specific software that I used that was not designed or supported by the Mac OS. I looked at BootCamp and Parallels and I went with Parallels since I could run both operating systems at the same time, and still have access to all of my data files in either operating system.To my surprise, the windows specific program actually ran faster and better on the Parallels with the Mac, than it did in native windows. I only use windows and Parallels when I have to (very specific applications) as I prefer the stability and utility of the Mac platform.