I used to be a paying Parallels customer but fell off when they started sending fear mongering emails: "URGENT SERVICE NOTIFICATION FOR PARALLELS DESKTOP 7 FOR MAC USERS: If you intend to upgrade to Mac OS X Mavericks (10.9), please note that Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac will not support OS X Mavericks (10.9). You will not be able to launch your Windows virtual machine or directly use your files through Parallels Desktop 7." I'm cool with upgrading to new versions for new features and paying for it. For example, if v7 doesn't support Windows 8, and v8 does, then that's a good reason to upgrade. Or even if it had better performance on the new version of OS X. But as a paying customer, making my software obsolete (and files inaccessible!) after 12 months is something I won't support. I should note, when you buy the software, there is nowhere where it says "works with only the current version of OS X". Buyer beware.

This is my go-to tool for those rare (but annoying) occasions where I need to run Windows native applications on my Mac. It's the best and most seamless integration I've found. This brand new version will support OSX Yosemite and has major performance improvements.