Today, Parallels announced the availability of their virtualization software Desktop version 4.0. It has a slew of new features, such as Modality, Smart Mount, 64 bit support and Speech Recognition. It’s also said to be 50% faster than version 3.0. You can buy the package for $79.99, or upgrade from version 3.0 for $39.99.

I’ve been using VMware Fusion now for almost a year, but the new features included in Parallels Desktop 4.0 are tempting me a bit to switch. Here’s the breakdown of why I’m tempted…

Been wanting to run Windows applications on your Mac or Linux machine? Well, on Tuesday, October 28th, you’ll be able to download the full version Crossovers, the corporate-supported version of Wine, from Codeweavers for free.

And you have President Bush to thank for it. Kind of.