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Parallels Aims New Products at SMBs
Feb 08, 2013 (Close-Up Media via COMTEX) --
Parallels, a hosting and cloud services enablement company, announced that small and medium business (SMB) adoption of cloud services from its partners using Parallels Automation and the Application Packaging Standard (APS) grew by more than 80 percent in 2012.
According to the company, this growth was fueled by SMBs who are now using an average of four cloud applications each, along with more than 50 percent of the top 30 global telecommunications providers now using the Parallels cloud service delivery platform. This is in addition to the 9,000 service providers and more than 50,000 web designers and developers also using the company's software to serve millions of SMBs.
To continue enabling service providers to grow and increase their share of the SMB cloud market, which is expected to mushroom to $95B by 20151, Parallels said it is unveiling number of new products including an update to the Application Packaging Standard. APS 2.0 now includes a pluggable single sign-on, service bus architecture, and customizable user interface enabling service providers to seamlessly offer differentiated bundles of cloud services with an easy purchase and activation experience. APS 2.0 will be integrated in Parallels Automation 5.5, which is expected to ship later this year, and will include more than 30 back-office improvements and new services such as support for Microsoft Lync 2013 Hosting Pack.
To help service providers manage their SMB customers' accelerating storage needs, Parallels announced Parallels Cloud Server and Parallels Cloud Storage. Parallels Cloud Storage turns existing unused disk space in servers into scalable, high-availability and high-performance distributed storage. It is now available as part of Parallels Cloud Server, which brings Parallels Virtuozzo Containers together with the company's hypervisor technology into a single product.
In addition to these product announcements, Parallels also released usage data for its products. First, Parallels Plesk Panel 11 is the fastest adopted version in the company's history. Second, more than 100 Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) have joined the APS ecosystem with new services in 2012. Finally, the Parallels service provider ecosystem has grown by more than 450 new partners over the past year. These updates combined with the new product announcements continue to make Parallels the catalyst for service providers to accelerate cloud adoption by SMBs.
"Parallels mission is to help service providers profit from the cloud. 2012 has been a breakthrough year for us in this regard," said Birger Steen, CEO of Parallels. "We have assisted service providers on all continents in crafting and executing cloud strategies, and we have enabled hundreds of new, useful cloud services for SMBs. We have continued extending our cloud service delivery platform: Parallels Cloud Storage dramatically reduces the cost of providing highly available storage. Parallels Automation 5.5 with APS 2.0 lets service providers deliver a seamless experience for SMBs buying multiple cloud services, with a library of more than 400 apps to choose from. We are more optimistic about our partners' success, as well as our own, than ever before."
"In working with hosters and service providers since the industry emerged in the late '90s, we have seen the acceleration of demand to create, deliver and manage bundled services for SMBs," said Serguei Beloussov, Chairman and Chief Architect of Parallels. "APS 2.0 is the game-changing technology that will make this happen across all Parallels products."
"SMBs are adopting cloud services at an accelerating rate, and they also have more choice than ever before in where to buy their cloud services," said Philbert Shih, Managing Director of Structure Research. "If service providers expect to stay relevant, they need to have access to actionable market research and analysis, the right enabling technologies, and a powerful partner ecosystem so they stay ahead of the competition. Parallels brings all of these requirements together in an integrated fashion specifically designed to help service providers succeed."
The announcements are being made in Las Vegas at Parallels Summit 2013. The event addresses all aspects of the company's service provider enablement solutions and business: Parallels service delivery software, expansion of the widest cloud services catalog, the broadest partner ecosystem, proprietary industry research and analysis, and a suite of go-to-market consulting and implementation services.
Next Generation of Cloud Service Delivery Software from Parallels
Parallels also announced new automation, virtualization and cloud storage products in addition to enhancements to Parallels control panel products at Parallels Summit.
With Parallels software, service providers can manage infrastructure, automate provisioning and accurately bill for the widest range of cloud services for SMBs, while offering control panels for self-service for the not only the provider but also for their resellers, IT administrators and end users. With a complete stack of cloud enablement software, Parallels can help service providers of any size offer SMBs the cloud services they need, ranging from shared hosting to hosted communications and collaboration to infrastructure-as-a-service to software-as-a-service. Products highlighted at the Summit included:
-Announcing APS 2.0: Parallels has significantly enhanced APS 2.0 to provide a secure, integrated and differentiated experience across all cloud services with service bus architecture, multi-factor authentication single sign-on, RESTful APIs, and HTML 5-based dynamic user interface.
-Announcing Parallels Automation 5.5: Parallels Automation 5.5 is expected to ship later this year and will have APS 2.0 built in and fully integrated. Navigation across billing and provisioning has been streamlined for an easy purchase and activation experience. The set of RESTful APIs has been expanded. New and updated core services include Linux and Windows Hosting, Microsoft Exchange 2013, Microsoft Lync 2013 and Cloud Infrastructure. This makes Parallels Automation the platform of choice for service providers and developers to innovate and differentiate.
-Announcing Parallels Cloud Storage: Parallels Cloud Storage drastically reduces the cost of high-availability storage. Offered as a seamless upgrade for existing Parallels Virtuozzo Containers and Parallels Server customers, it will support third party virtualization technologies in 2013. Parallels Cloud Storage uses the existing unused disk space on server nodes to create a self-healing centralized storage pool for distributed, high-performance cloud storage.
-Announcing Parallels Cloud Server: Parallels Cloud Server now makes it easy to offer all cloud infrastructure services customers want. It includes Parallels Virtuozzo Containers together with hypervisor technology and Parallels Cloud Storage, combing all of the pieces to enable infrastructure services.
-Announcing Parallels Plesk Automation: Parallels Plesk Automation is a scalable, multi-server cloud automation solution enabling a seamless growth path for Parallels Plesk Panel customers to scale to thousands of servers and a range of services. It also provides the ability to centrally manage end customers.
-Parallels Presence Builder: With Parallels Presence Builder, service providers can attract new customers and differentiate their offerings. Parallels Presence Builder has hundreds of industry-specific site designs for SMB businesses along with a drag-and-drop interface. In addition to integration with Parallels Plesk Panel, Parallels Plesk Automation and Parallels Automation, it now supports cPanel and provides full set of APIs to integrate with any in-house system.
-Parallels Plesk Panel: Parallels Plesk Panel 11 continues its fast control panel.
New APS Certification Program for ISVs Supports Expansion of Parallels Ecosystem
Over the past year, Parallels has expanded its ecosystem to include more than 450 new partnerships across the technology industry, including service providers such as Colt, Sprint and Telenor, resellers, and more than a hundred ISVs. The company's partner ecosystem is designed to allow service providers to offer and integrate the broadest and most flexible set of third party cloud services available in the market. New applications to the APS cloud catalog include: 5nine Cloud Backup, Monitoring and Firewall for Hyper-V, CakeMail, CertiVox SkyPin and PrivateSky, Cisco Webex, Gamasec, Identity Syncronizer, Luxcloud Hosted 365, Mailprotector Email Security & Management Suite, Mail2World, Microsoft Dynamics by Luxcloud, Minoto Video, Opero, Premier Global Services (PGi), Sonian. Enhanced applications in the APS cloud catalog include CloudFlare, Dell Quest, EMC Mozy, and Microsoft Lync 2010 SP2.
More information:
http://www.parallels.com/spp
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