Though it is not uncommon for media sites to post fake stories on April 1 as a joke, the faux Parallels acquisition story was poorly executed considering its lack of a clear punchline and the fact that such a deal is not entirely implausible. In fact, just last year some industry insiders noted that Beloussov was seeking potential partners to invest or even buy the company.

Needless to say, many of the site's readers believed the factual content of the article and posted their thoughts in the comments section. When ZDNet contacted Beloussov via email yesterday regarding the article, he had this to say: "Sun buying us for $205m, this is definitely an April Fool's joke. We have not and are not planning on discussing a sale with Sun."

Beloussov also mentioned in the email that although Parallels had not been involved in the prank, it definitely had some consequences for the software provider. "This rumour has totally skewed [our] numbers -- like by [an] order of magnitude," he said, before adding that the company is "profitable" and "growing ultra-quickly."

As for the pranksters, Virtualization.com did offer a partial apology to Beloussov and his colleagues regarding the April Fool joke. "Obviously, this was an April Fool (we're in based in Europe, so it's 1 April earlier than over in the US)."

And to show the rest of the industry that it can take a joke, Parallels itself posted its own prank story on its blog, claiming that it was to acquire Sun, not to mention Apple, Microsoft and BMW as well.