All posts by Parallels Cloud

Asigra, Guest Bloggers, IT, Recovery-based Pricing

Rationalize Your IT Budget with Recovery-Based Pricing

 

By Eran Farajun, Executive Vice President, Asigra

If you make software purchasing decisions or influence your company’s data and recovery solutions, there are some recent studies you should know about.

The Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) recently surveyed economic buyers, technical buyers, and financial buyers about their data-growth expectations, cost pressures, pricing preferences, and recovery rates. They discovered:

  • – 3 out of 4 respondents expect data to grow at a rate of around 20% a year.
  • – 2 out of 3 respondents felt “some” or “strong” pressure” to reduce IT spend.
  • – Financial buyers were the most likely group to expect a “substantial increase” in backup & recovery costs over the next 5 yrs.

With these data points in mind, let’s now look at another report by Forrester Research: Demand Pricing That Matches Business Value—The Radical Sourcing Trend for 2013. In this report, Duncan Jones explains why the traditional pricing models currently dominating the software market are “obsolete” and “no longer match products’ cost to the business value they deliver.”

 

Jones notes that technology market shifts such as cloud and big data affect the way that IT managers and other purchasers buy software. He goes on to recommend that software buyers demand new pricing models that better match business value.

 

Performance-based pricing models continue to surface in the IT industry, such as recovery-based pricing for backup and recovery users: Recovery-based pricing can be categorized as a performance- or behaviorally driven pricing model that puts greater cost controls in the hands of the user. That’s because this approach has been decoupled from the number of machines protected or the capacity of data to protect. Instead, pricing is connected with the volume of data actually recovered.

 

Recovery-based pricing allows users to pay for what they are purchasing the solution to do – recover their data. It also helps software purchasers rationalize their IT budget for data and recovery because they will be billed for data that is recovered. This model aligns with a recovery metric, no longer solely based on the backup of data. If a company’s recovery needs are less, then users will pay less for these services. What’s more, it offers a fixed cost of backup with a variable cost for recovery based on the amount of data recovered on an annual basis.  

Eran Farajun is the executive vice president for Asigra. The company can be reached at partners@asigra.com or 416-736-8111.

Cloud Services, Events, Microsoft, Parallels Automation, WPC

Best of Class clouds use Microsoft and Parallels because that is what customers want.

 

Did you know that there are over 400 services that can be sold through Parallels Service delivery platform? These are all based on the APS standard. It is important to have such a broad portfolio as the cloud needs of SMBs are quite diverse. At the same time, there are a core set of services that customers expect. They include Web Hosting, Email, Collaboration and Infrastructure. In most cases the preferred choice of customers are Microsoft products. This is why Parallels has always made sure that Parallels software and Microsoft software work well together and that we always have the latest and greatest versions available.

 

We make this happen by spending time with Microsoft engineers in the product groups and Microsoft sales and marketing in the field. It assures us that we are building solutions that are optimized for service providers and bring out the best of Microsoft products and services.

 

This has enabled above market growth rates from our service provider partners for Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Office 365, and Microsoft Lync.

 

This week we have updates for all of these products as well as a few more including Microsoft Lync Hosting Pack and soon, Microsoft Azure Pack for Hosting Providers.

 

If you want to offer Microsoft-based cloud services and offer them soon, let me know.

 

Thank you Microsoft for being a great partner.

 

John Zanni, Vice President SP Marketing and Alliances

 

Events, Industry & Market Insights, Microsoft, PartnerNet, WPC

Technical enablement of Microsoft SMB cloud services is easy. Selling to SMBs is not. Parallels has the solution.

 

Starting a hosting or cloud business is easy. Whether you are a small hoster or web designer, infrastructure provider, managed service provider or telco, it just takes buying the right software to automate those services. Parallels has a whole portfolio for the small to the large business. That does not mean you will be successful.

 

Service providers fail because they think that putting a catalog up is sufficient. It is not. The most successful providers have an end to end marketing and sales enablement plan to go with the offer. They take into account up-sell and cross-sell scenarios. They have a strong feedback loop so that they can tune their offers.

 

We, at Parallels, believe that it is part of our responsibility to give you the tools you need to be successful. That is why we created PartnerNet. This is the location for our partners to get all the best practices and information needed to be successful.

 

We will be bringing a taste of PartnerNet to you at Microsoft WPC. Come meet with Birger Steen, our CEO, Mauro Meanti, SVP and GM SP Business and of course, yours truly while we present “Succeeding in the SMB Cloud with Microsoft and Parallels” on Monday, July 8 at 4:30 PM in the Hilton Americas. After that session, you will know what it takes to sell those Microsoft cloud services and more.  You can also come to the booth and drop off your business card for a chance to win a Surface!

 

See you there!

 

John Zanni, Vice President SP Marketing and Alliances

 

 

 

 

#AskParallels, Events, WPC

#AskParallels @ Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference

 

As a Gold Sponsor for Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) next week (July 7-11), we’re anxious to connect with any of you who will be attending this year’s event in Houston. Come see us in booth #1701.

On Monday, July 8th from 4:30-5:30pm, you can catch Birger Steen, Mauro Meanti and John Zanni presenting “Succeeding in the SMB Cloud with Microsoft and Parallels” in Grand Ballroom G of Hilton Americas.

If you won’t be attending WPC13, but are interested in engaging with our executives and WPC team at the event, we encourage you to do so vicariously via Twitter.

Introducing #AskParallels…ask a question of the Parallels WPC team and receive a short video response direct from WPC13. Just tweet your Parallels/Microsoft-related question(s) using hashtags #AskParallels and #WPC13. You can ask your question any time between now and July 11th.

Remember…#AskParallels and #WPC13, let’s get this Q&A started!

Cloud Services, India, Industry & Market Insights, SMB Cloud Insights

Cloud-making SMBs in India – a force to reckon with

by John Zanni, Vice President of Service Provider Marketing and Alliances, Parallels

 

I have been visiting India for more than 10 years and I have seen an amazing transformation in the last years. Today, there are 36 million micro, small and medium enterprises in India. Many face seeming insurmountable challenges of sub-optimal scale of operation, technological obsolescence, supply chain inefficiencies, increasing domestic and global competition, fund shortages, and turbulent and uncertain market scenario.

 

That’s the bad news. The good news is that today’s new generation of entrepreneurs in India is young, bold and willing to try new ideas. They see an opportunity and take the plunge. They know that as small businesses they have the benefit of being agile and nimble against much larger organizations. They are therefore able to capitalize more quickly on emerging opportunities. They are also more willing to take a few hits at the beginning of the business to win big later.

 

They understand that being small means they don’t have the luxury of large financial backing to support the various activities of the business. This means they need to be smarter at deciding how best to compete and grow.

 

One smart proven approach is the use of web presence to create brand awareness and generate business opportunities. They are turning to the cloud to reach out to potential customers locally, nationally and internationally. Creativity and technology are making it possible for these small upstarts to compete against much larger businesses.

 

The result is phenomenal growth in adoption of ICT particularly those delivered via cloud computing. In the past, the biggest barrier to adoption to cloud services in India was bandwidth but that’s changing very rapidly. Bandwidth is significantly better now, and reliability issues are slowly going away. Cloud adoption will explode and we see the opportunity for cloud services accelerating.

 

The latest Parallels SMB Cloud Insights™ for India estimates that the Indian SMB cloud services opportunity in 2013 is worth ₹16.9 billion (US$339 million), and expects it to grow 35 percent year-over-year for the next three years, reaching ₹42 billion (US$839 million) by the beginning of 2016.  This growth will be driven by new adopters of cloud services and current users adding more applications and functionality to their existing cloud services. They are eager to get online and consume services that will help them reach their customer base, increase their productivity, and improve their IT capabilities and they are willing to PAY for it. 

 

The opportunity is huge.  We are seeing it in our business at Parallels.

 

Service providers who are able to stay on top of this growing demand by SMBs and engage them with the right mix of services and applications will grow and profit in the years to come.

 

Control Panels

Turning Cloud Sense into Dollars

 

As small and medium businesses (SMBs) continue to increase their use of cloud services, web hosters have been asking, “How can I leverage this opportunity to better serve my customers’ needs and grow my business?” Here are some tips on how offering a competitive core bundle and upselling value added services can be a successful way to increase your average revenue per user (ARPU), reduce churn and differentiate your services.

 

•    Increase ARPU – To increase the revenue your customers generate, you need to continuously offer them new services. Upselling and cross-selling additional services and products—both during and after the point of sale—will play a major role in maximizing revenues from your existing customer base.

•    Reduce customer churn – Customer retention is the litmus test of your ability to differentiate yourself as a service provider and demonstrate to your customers you understand their needs. Studies show that when SMBs buy additional services through their Web service provider, they are less likely to leave. You can also differentiate yourself by engaging customers with great service; educating them on how to derive the greatest value from the solutions they purchase from you; and offering them outstanding support.

But how can you determine which solutions SMBs need? Our Parallels SMB Cloud Insights™ research can help give you the answers:
 

30% of SMBs plan to add site building tools in the next three years – to capture your fair share, offer Parallels Web Presence Builder, a full-featured website design tool that any SMB can use. With Parallels Web Presence Builder, you can attract new customers and differentiate your services by offering try-and-buy evaluations or configuring a freemium website offer and upselling to paid or hosting packages.

50% of US SMBs have or plan to build mobile websites – with the highest growth in next three years. The time to start selling mobile optimized websites is now and UNITY Mobile will enable your customers to quickly create and publish a mobile site that run on any mobile phone and tablet. You can offer mobile services bundled or as standalone and UNITY Mobile products also offer you upsell options.

 

44% of SMBs are concerned about security – Web Hosters can help reduce security fears by upselling key services such as StopTheHacker, a great website security solution to help your customers prevent, detect and quickly recover from hacker or malware attacks. Another important application is CloudFlare, which extends your network globally with 23 points-of-presence on four continents, making your customer’s websites load twice as fast, while keeping them safe and optimized.

 

If you’re an Infrastructure Provider, you should offer server-wide services to protect your customers, secure your reputation and improve customer satisfaction – Parallels Premium Antivirus and Parallels Premium Outbound Antispam are two must-have applications. With Parallels Plesk Panel Power Pack you can extend Parallels Panel capabilities with high-value add-ons. As an example, Panel Power Pack includes five mailbox licenses for Kaspersky Antivirus server-side e-mail scanning software. These licenses are resalable, so you can use them to upsell your customers to additional mailbox protection, you can also upsell to an unlimited per server license.

 

Leslie McGuire
Channel Marketing Director

 

cloud brokerage, Hosting, John Zanni

Selling Value in the Cloud

 

Cloud brokerage makes a great deal of sense to the channel. Take vanilla services from a variety of vendors, package them with (or without) your own secret sauce, and sell them with your own SLA wrapped around them. It’s a classic channel solution sell. That said, this brings VARs and ISPs into conflict with IT departments – which, in the past, have been the owner of the service guarantee within each organization, and which may be feeling increasingly marginalized by the migration of application and resource management to the cloud. In this article by John Zanni, VP of service provider marketing and alliances at Parallels he discusses how Cloud brokerage turns resellers into VARs again.

 

Read the article on ChannelPro.

 

cloud brokerage, Hosting

Selling Value in the Cloud

 

Cloud brokerage makes a great deal of sense to the channel. Take vanilla services from a variety of vendors, package them with (or without) your own secret sauce, and sell them with your own SLA wrapped around them. It’s a classic channel solution sell. That said, this brings VARs and ISPs into conflict with IT departments – which, in the past, have been the owner of the service guarantee within each organization, and which may be feeling increasingly marginalized by the migration of application and resource management to the cloud. In this article by John Zanni, VP of service provider marketing and alliances at Parallels he discusses how Cloud brokerage turns resellers into VARs again.

 

Read the article on ChannelPro.

 

Cloud Services, DAS, Storage

The Death of DAS?

 

For over a decade, Direct Attached Storage (DAS) has been a no-brainer for many organizations; simple, fast and cost-effective. But as applications, compute and storage move to the cloud, DAS is looking like less and less of a sure bet. In fact, it’s looking more like a liability. But migrating from traditional DAS models to cloud storage is not as difficult or complex as it seems, and the good news for VARs and service providers is that they can make recommendations to customers with large DAS estates which, given solid integration and lateral thinking, will allow them to get best use out of what may, initially, seem to be redundant technology.

 

In this recent piece published on Channel Pro, John Zanni, vice president of service provider marketing and alliances at Parallels takes a look at the drawbacks of DAS in a cloud environment – and what alternatives are out there.

 

The Death of DAS?


Cloud Services, Control Panel, Control Panels, Hosting, Parallels Plesk Automation, Structure Research

Shared Hosting Transformation and the Control Panel

 

Structure Research, an independent research and consulting firm with a focus on the hosting and cloud segments within the Internet infrastructure market, recently released an opinion piece titled “Shared hosting transformation and the control panel.”

 

The blog article provides fresh insight into the future of shared hosting with single-server panel technology vs. multi-server technology, such as Parallels Plesk Automation. Structure Research shares how management tools have not kept up with growth of many hosters. Check out Structure Research’s insights on why hosters’ ability to “scale through operational efficiency will be paramount.”

 

Good stuff.