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I bought Parallels last fall going into business school and needing to run some add-ins for Excel and other simulation software that were not made for Mac. Not to mention Microsoft Access. I think it was the best expense I had for my classes. It is reasonably priced and works great. I love being able to run Windows apps and Mac apps together so I don't have to leave the Mac world all together at any point. You can run a full screen Windows mode where you don't use Mac at all, you can run Windows in a window much like you would an internet application accept you have the Windows desktop in that window, or you can run what they call "Cohesion Mode" where you have the start menu bar at the bottom of your Mac screen and just run Windows and Mac simultaneously and basically on the Mac desktop.
Some of my Mac friends had Boot Camp. While it did work, it was a pain for them to have to restart the computer every time they wanted to go from Mac to Windows. Also, I forgot to mention, in Parallels you can drag and drop files between the desktops if you need to convert a file format if you don't have the Office 2008 for Mac but have Office 2007 on the Windows side.
I mentioned this before in a different thread. In one of my classes we had to run a simulation ad-on for Excel. The majority of the class could not get it to work on their home computers and had to do their work on University owned computers. I was one of the few who it worked for and the only person in the class running Windows XP via Parallels. What can I say, a Mac with Parallels runs Windows better than a PC.
Overall, if you are going to be using Windows with any frequency above maybe a handful of times a year, I would recommend Parallels. It is not that expensive when you think about what you get out of it. If you need to use Windows 1 time in your life, maybe try something free, but overall I highly recommend Parallels to anyone. (I think you have to have an Intel based Mac for it though)
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