The easiest solution to all concerns about leaving the PC and not having the software you need is that a Mac can easily run PC software. Here are some of the most popular solutions.

First up, Bootcamp. I loaded Bootcamp on our iMac the day after it came out. It was a great way to retire the last remaining PC in the house. My wife needed a PC because she had started a design project in Quark with certain fonts that were only available on the PC. It did take about an hour to get everything up and running but it was not a big hassle. Whenever we wanted to run the PC on the Mac, we just restarted the computer and held down the “option” key. The PC loaded right up. The downside, we could not run any Mac programs while the PC was going. Nevertheless, it ran lightning fast and we had no stability issues whatsoever.

Next up, Parallels. I only recently put this on my Macbook Pro. It is a fine piece of software. There is an audio program that is used by the Washington Courts that only works on a PC. Parallels is very intuitive and opens in a separate window right on your Mac. Personally, I do not have enough RAM in my computer to make this the most productive program. It slows things down considerably and my Macbook runs pretty hot with only one gig of RAM. That said, it runs about as well as Virtual PC ran on my old Mac. I have talked to other attorneys that use Parallels with two gigs and they say that it runs like butter.

Finally, there is VM Ware’s Fusion. The most recent player to enter the market (from beta), they are heavy hitters with big-time backers. I have not used the software but the spec’s are impressive. The program has 64 bit support (Parallels currently does not). However, Parallels has graphic card support for 3d gaming. Both companies claim that they will meet or beat the shortcomings that are used to compare the two. Mac World has written good article comparing them both.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 20th, 2007 at 5:14 pm and is filed under Software for the Law Office. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.