Google and Parallels bring Windows apps to business Chromebooks

Google has partnered with Parallels to bring Windows apps to Chromebooks. For the time being, the collaboration is exclusively aimed at business users, which concerns the enterprise version of Chrome.

Parallels, a virtualization company known for making it easier to run Windows apps on Macs, reports that these will be full Windows apps and will be available for Chrome Enterprise for the first time this fall.

Google has informed Android Police that this integration will be made possible by integrating a variant of Parallels Desktop into Chrome OS, including offline support. Parallels Desktop is a virtual machine that runs Windows on a Mac.

The companies provide few details, but at least Microsoft Office is mentioned as an example of Windows apps that will be available on Chromebooks. Google says it will release more details in the coming months.

In the blog post, Google devotes quite a few words to the changed work situation due to covid-19; how much working from home has now become the norm and that shifting workloads to servers is becoming more common. Google says it wants to contribute to this in new ways with Chrome OS, including support for Microsoft Office desktop apps.