All posts by Laura Brenner

Cloud Services, Hosting, IT, Marketing, service provider

Offering Cloud Services, practice what you preach

by, Gerrit-Jan van Wieren, Vice President Business Development

IASO Cloud Backup

As an IT service provider you probably started years ago with the idea you would do a better job than the rest. With a lot of enthusiasm and energy you have built a company of reasonable size and offer all kinds of different services. With the rise of Cloud you have the ideal position to tell your customers not to buy and own things, or have IT staff as a core business. You ask them the question; is this bringing you money? Or can we take it off your back? You used to invest in hardware which looked cheaper long-term, but you end up with IT staff that you don’t want on your payroll.

 

Did you ask that question to yourself? As an IT service provider providing services is in your DNA. But is investing also in your DNA? Or is it about making money? Owning stuff is not your core business. When you choose a solution, whether it is hosted backup or hosted e-mail the question should always be if you could do a better job. Look at all the aspects which come with hosting it yourself. It might look cheaper; buy some disks, forget to calculate the costs for staff, electricity and bring in the money.

 

Is it that easy? There is some risk involved. Disks can break, 24×7 availability is actually costing money and your staff can (accidentally) mismanage the platform into serious downtime. When we take a closer look at the business case we also see the calculation is missing reality. You always start with 0 GB and it takes time to reach the 100% coverage for all invested Terabytes. And when you reach 80% you know you’re up for new cash out. 

 

Will you do a better job than the manufacturer? Will it bring you more money?

 

Always go for pay as you grow, without investments. Add value to the proposition with your knowledge and well educated staff. Start making money from day one. And remember what you tell your end customer about investing in IT. Practice what you preach.

Uncategorized

Announcing exciting new features released today for Parallels Plesk Automation 11.0

 

In the latest microupdate (#4) for Parallels Plesk Automation 11.0, new much sought-after capabilities have been added to Parallels’ unrivaled multi-server hosting offering.

  •  SmarterMail – enables often-requested support for popular and cost-effective Exchange-level email server software
  •  Microsoft SQL Server 2008 – in addition to registering existing servers, you can now also automate your SQL Server 2008 installations
  • Diagnostic tools – aids administrators in troubleshooting issues with connecting service nodes to the management node.

For details on the update, read the Release Notes.

applications, APS, APS Partners, Cloud Services, Hosting, Parallels Summit, Software as a service

Just providing best- of – breed is no longer good enough

By John Zanni, Vice President, Marketing and Alliances, Parallels

 

In this ever changing cloud environment, service providers are telling us that whenever they think they have a handle on what SMBs want, SMBs indicate their “wants” are expanding. What this means is that service providers cannot linger on what was a key service last year. SMBs are constantly trying to grow their business and furthering their understanding of their customers, so as their customers branch out into new territories whether accounting, health care, entertainment, retail (you get the picture), SMBs will look to service providers to be nimble enough to accommodate those developments with cloud offerings they can use – and use with ease. In fact, best-of-breed is no longer as relevant or as meaningful as are specificity and ease of use.

 

Luckily for everyone, need generates innovation and development. There is a burgeoning of cloud services applications for a world of vertical markets, and many SMBs are looking for the application that specifically serves their needs rather than the most well-known or most often used applications.

 

From open source applications to complex solutions, through Application Packaging Standards, ISVs can create any applications that are needed or can be invented. (You can learn more about APS at appstandards.org.) Of note, this is an open standard, and Parallels does not need to approve an application for it to become available through APS.

 

There are a number of examples of such offerings in the Parallels APS catalogue, including:

  • ·         MoySklad – a Russian business that produces a contact resource management and accounting service
  • ·         SpamExperts – an Anti-virus/anti-spam/archiving solution very popular throughout Europe
  • ·         BackupAgent – produces backup services for hosters and service providers and is popular in Europe and Asia.

 

Service Providers have access to these cloud services and applications and can easily enable them on Parallels Plesk Panel or Parallels Automation service providers; it then simply becomes a matter of marketing those applications to their customers with those particular requirements.   

 

For service providers looking for more information on how to grow their business through the bundling of new applications that live in the cloud, Parallels Summit 2013, Feb 4-6, at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas is the place to be. Hundreds of ISVs with be demonstrating their services. There will be technical, developer, and business tracks on how to enable and promote applications in the cloud along with best practices on working with Parallels products that push your business up the ladder. Be there to experience and assess what you could use for your customers.

 

Uncategorized

Hosted Communication and Collaboration is the fastest-growing cloud service in Europe and North Africa

By, John Zanni, Vice President Service Provider Marketing and Alliances, Parallels


Parallels just recently released the first research on cloud adoption at small and medium businesses (SMBs) in Europe and Northern Africa (EUNA). We saw a diverse mix of cloud service opportunities in the SMB marketplace, ranging from replacing companies’ in-house IT solutions, to acquiring new adopters who currently have no in-house solution, to upselling current customers to more advanced services.

 

For the major hosted services—hosted infrastructure, web presence, hosted communication and collaboration, and business applications— Parallels estimates the 2012 EUNA SMB to grow from $12.6B USD in 2012 to $29.4B USD in 2015, representing a year-over-year growth rate of 33%.

 

Use of hosted communication and collaboration services is still small across all EUNA countries, but it’s the fastest-growing of all cloud-service categories.

 

Although more than 50% of SMBs in developed countries with mature cloud services are using hosted email, the vast majority are using free options: only 10% to 20% of them are using hosted premium email. In the remaining EUNA countries, fewer than 50% of SMBs are using hosted email of any sort—and, again, only 10% to 20% of them are paying for the premium option. Nonetheless, there is ample opportunity in this market, with our research showing that up to 50% of those currently not using hosted premium email are considering adding the service in the near future.


We suggest two main strategies for expanding the current low usage of hosted premium email:

Encourage adoption among micro and small SMBs using in-house email servers.


Our research found that around 10% to 15% of micro SMBs and more than 20% of small SMBs in developed EUNA countries are using in-house email servers. This is an expensive and complicated solution for small companies, particularly those without dedicated IT staff. And since, depending on the specific country, anywhere from 20% to 50% of SMBs with in-house email servers are either definitely planning to switch to hosted premium email over the next three years or are considering doing so, these SMBs represent a sizable opportunity.

 

Upsell small and medium SMBs currently using free email


Another opportunity lies in upselling the cloud expanders currently using free email, whether from a hosting service provider, an ISP, or a provider like Google. (We consider SMBs that upgrade from free hosted email to hosted premium email to be cloud expanders, even though their current use of the cloud service is free.) Upselling these SMBs to hosted premium email should be easy—particularly for small and medium SMBs—since they can benefit both from this service’s team collaboration aspects and from a “pay-per-seat” pricing model. These SMBs represent a significant opportunity, as our research shows that over 30% of small and medium SMBs currently using free hosted email are either planning to add hosted premium email in the next three years or considering doing so.

 

There are already more than a dozen hosting companies from all over the world such as LuxCloud (www.luxcloud.com), Blacknight Solutions (www.blacknight.com), Irish Domains Ltd. (www.irishdomains.com), Ovaleye (www.ovaleye.com), PacHosting (www.pachosting.com), ReadySpace (www.readyspace.com) and Triple Cloud (www.ccc.co.il) that are using Parallels’ products to provide their customers with Open-Xchange´s email and collaboration software as hosted service.

Contact a Parallels or Open-Xchange representative today to understand how this trend can improve your business right now!