Parallels is a software company based in Bellevue, Washington; it is primarily involved in the development of virtualization software for macOS. The company has offices in 14 countries, including The United States, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Japan, China, Spain, Russia, Australia and Mauritius and has over 800 employees. Company history SWSoft, a privately held server automation and virtualization software company, developed software for running data centers, particularly for web-hosting services companies and application service providers. Their Virtuozzo product was an early system-level server virtualization solution, and in 2003 they bought Plesk, a commercial web hosting platform. In 2004, SWsoft acquired Parallels, Inc. and Parallels Workstation for Windows and Linux 2.0 was released, with Parallels Desktop for Mac following in mid-2006. SWsoft's acquisition of Parallels was more or less kept under wraps until January 2004, two years before Parallels became mainstream. Later the same year the corporate headquarters moved from Herndon, Virginia to Renton, Washington. Historically, their primary development labs were in Moscow and Novosibirsk, Russia. Parallels was founded by Serguei Beloussov, who was born in the former Soviet Union and later emigrated to Singapore. At Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference 2007 in San Francisco, California, Parallels announced and demonstrated its upcoming Parallels Server for Mac. Parallels Server for Mac will reportedly allow IT managers to run multiple server operating systems on a single Mac Xserve. In 2007, the German company Netsys GmbH sued Parallels' German distributor Avanquest for copyright violation (see Parallels Desktop for Mac for details), then Parallels Server for Mac was announced at WWDC, and later Parallels Technology Network. In 2008, SWsoft merged into Parallels to become one company under the Parallels branding which then acquired ModernGigabyte, LLC. Parallels Server for Mac was launched in June then in September Parallels Desktop 4 for Windows and Linux, a rename of Parallels Workstation for the 4.0 release, and Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac later that year. From the next version, 6.0, the Windows and Linux software became known as Parallels Workstation again. Over the next three years, the company launched Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac, Parallels Desktop 6 for Mac, Parallels Server for Mac 4.0 Mac mini Edition, Parallels Transporter, Parallels Workstation 6 Extreme, Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac, Parallels Mobile for iOS, and Parallels Workstation 6. During 2012, 2013 and 2014, the company discontinued Parallels Server for Mac, Windows and Linux, launched Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac and Mac Management