> Parallels is also amazed by the news from Microsoft about adding support of x64 applications in Windows on ARM.<p>It's strange that they mention this but don't say whether it will be possible to run Windows in Parallels on Apple silicon. From everything I've read so far, it seems it's not currently possible to purchase a version of Windows for ARM because Microsoft licenses it only to OEMs.
Where I work they’re stockpiling Intel based Macs before inventory from their VAR runs out. Machines specifically for engineering teams as they use some tools which will only work on Intel. Virtualization tools is one of the needs and the M1 compatibility is not there yet like this post from Parallels mentions.<p>I remember the last transition from PowerPC to Intel. At that time it was more consumer coded applications that had the wait and see approach or delays. Now that Apple is a mainstream tool used for developer environments, this transition might be more painful as startups rely on OSS that may not be ready for M1.
Unfortunately with no native x86 support, true x86 virtualization goes away.<p>True virtualization will be for ARM (such as Linux or macOS, maybe embedded Win10 for ARM) VMs only. x86 Windows VMs will not work with native ARM virtualization, and x86 apps will run slowly if at all under emulation in ARM Win10.<p>However, Parallels (and VMware etc.) could potentially leverage Rosetta 2 to run x86 VMs in emulation on ARM, at greatly reduced speed compared to native x86 virtualization on intel Macs.<p>Boot Camp for x86 Windows is dead on these machines as well.
I have to wonder how well this will work. I haven't heard anything about in-CPU virtualization tech like in the Intel CPUs.<p>Here's hoping it works well, because last I checked Microsoft hasn't yet achieved perfect parity between Mac/Windows office apps (and may not be aiming for it).