The last few years have been a doozy for everyone, and IT admins are no exception. They are experiencing a massive worker shortage combined with an increasingly threatening cybersecurity landscape and the monumental task of navigating an abrupt shift to remote and hybrid work.

Right now, everyone—especially IT admins—are looking for ways to be as streamlined and resource-efficient as possible.

So, that means probably not going out and buying a bunch of new devices on a different operating system just because there are a few essential programs that aren’t compatible on your current systems. Right?

The issue

That’s the challenge that faced Harry Schuler, an electrical engineering graduate who has served as a system administrator for event-organizing company POOLgroup since 1994. Harry oversees roughly 200 endpoint devices, almost all of them Apple products. Harry sets up the systems in person and administration is handled locally across several offices. POOLgroup relies on Mac solutions for most of their needs, but a number of special applications demanded the introduction of a Windows solution as well.

Harry could have purchased PCs for those who needed them, but replacing perfectly functional devices wasn’t a very good use of resources. It also would have created a significantly increased IT administration workload. Plus, frankly, the employees didn’t want PCs.

The solution

Looking for an alternative option, Harry did what many of us do: He googled it. And found a promising solution that seemed neither to imply buying additional hardware nor to come with any impact on productivity or high deployment or training overhead: The Parallels® Desktop Business Edition.

“The Parallels Desktop Business Edition saves money for our company, for me as an admin it saves a great deal of time, and it saves the nerves of users who would long have lost them with cumbersome switching between operating systems. I can only recommend Parallels Desktop,” said Schuler.

Harry downloaded a free trial, which he tested thoroughly. It ticked all the boxes, so he provided the solution at first to five back-office staff members before rolling it out fully. It has been smooth sailing ever since.

In Harry’s words: “For me as an admin, key features of a new solution are that it integrates perfectly into the existing infrastructure, it is easy to set up and roll out, it doesn’t entail any support overhead, and it comes with efficiency benefits that help pay for the purchase price in a short time.”

Easy. Efficient. Cost-saving. That’s exactly what IT admins like Harry need right now.

Of course, you don’t have to take Harry’s word for it. Find out for yourself. Read the full POOLgroup case study or learn more about Parallels Desktop.