Parallels Workstation

I don't know if anyone's already posted about this but now there is this software called "Parallels Workstation" in beta testing which lets you run Windows directly in Mac OSX simultaneously.
The one negative thing is apparently its only 95% fast as "Boot Camp" and you could play games but none of the 3-D variety. www.parallels.com

Here's more information:

"Boot Camp's problem, though, is right there in its name: You have to reboot (restart) the computer every time you switch systems. As a result, you can't copy and paste between Mac and Windows programs. And when you want to run a Windows program, you have to close everything you were working on, shut down the Mac, and restart it in Windows — and then reverse the process when you're done. You lose two or three minutes each way.

NO wonder, then, that last week, the corridors of cyberspace echoed with the sounds of high-fiving when a superior solution came to light. A little company called Parallels has found a way to eliminate all of those drawbacks — and to run Windows XP and Mac OS X simultaneously.

The software is called Parallels Workstation for Mac OS X, although a better name might be No Reboot Camp. It, too, is a free public beta, available for download from parallels.com. You can pre-order the final version for $40, or pay $50 after its release (in a few weeks, says the company).

Parallels, like Boot Camp, requires that you supply your own copy of Windows. But here's the cool part: with Parallels, unlike Boot Camp, it doesn't have to be XP. It can be any version, all the way back to Windows 3.1 — or even Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, OS/2 or MS-DOS. All of this is made possible by a feature of Intel's Core Duo chips (called virtualization) that's expressly designed for running multiple operating systems simultaneously.

In the finished version, the company says, you'll be able to work in several operating systems at once. What the heck — install Windows XP three times. If one becomes virus-ridden, you can just delete it and smile.

But before your head explodes, consider the most popular case: running one copy of Windows XP on your Mac.

Suppose you're finishing a brochure on your Mac, and you need a phone number from your company's Microsoft Access database. You double-click the Parallels icon, and 15 seconds later — yes, 15 seconds — Windows XP is running in a window of its own, just as you left it. You open Access, look up and copy the contact information, click back into your Mac design program, and paste. Sweet.

Using Boot Camp, you'd restart the computer in Windows, look up the number — but then what? Without the ability to copy and paste, what would you do with the phone number once you found it? Write it on an envelope?

Parallels is very fast — perhaps 95 percent as fast as Boot Camp. (It's definitely not a software-based emulator like Microsoft's old, dog-slow Virtual PC program.) It's even fast enough for video games, although not the 3-D variety; for now, those are still better played in Boot Camp."