Category Archives: Cloud Services

Bagful Solutions, Cloud Services, Growth, Industry & Market Insights, LuxCloud, Parallels Automation, Partners & Customers, Triple C

Growth is the New ‘Parallels Red’

 

I was recently reviewing the more than 80 case studies and video case studies we have published. It reminded me of a few trends we are seeing.

 

Time to deployment is clearly important but not a guarantee of success. This industry is at a stage where we know how to launch services and launch them quickly. What is less common is how to grow the customer base. I took a look at some of our more successful partners to see if there was a pattern…there is.

 

They know their customer. They have an anchor service that gets the customer what they need. They also have the appropriate set of add-on services to go beyond and delight the customer. Here are several examples I pulled from a couple case studies:

 

“We have implemented almost every Parallels Automation module there is. That proves our confidence in the solution. In the two and a half years since we launched our Parallels Automation platform, we have achieved year-on-year growth of over 200% in cloud services. We expect to exceed that in 2013.”

— Ely Cohen, CTO, Triple C

 

“In the last 18 months, our business with Limestone Networks has grown by 300%. We serve more customers, and have a bigger server requirement from Limestone. It is a win-win thing.”

— Sham Kamboj, Director of Services, Bagful Solutions

 

“The ability to evolve Hosted365 quickly, and its appeal to both resellers and other service providers around the world, is driving our growth as a company. And it’s all being made possible by Parallels Automation and the Application Packaging Standard.”

— Marco Houwen, LuxCloud CEO and Founder

 

Do you have a growth story you want to share?

 

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

jzanni@parallels.com

 

 

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

 

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.

 

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.

 

 

Cloud Services, Parallels Summit, Parallels Summit 2013, Partner Awards, service provider

Parallels Partner Awards Winners Announced at Parallels Summit 2013

 

 

The winners of the 2012 Parallels Partner Awards have been announced! Each of these winners recognize were able to make the best use of the assets Parallels provides and were able to innovate and differentiate their service in the rapidly-expanding small and medium business (SMB) cloud services market.

 

“On behalf of Parallels and personally, I’d like to congratulate both the finalists and recipients of this year’s Parallels Partner Awards. They are leading and innovative cloud service providers and technology companies, and each one of them has done something outstanding in 2012,” said Birger Steen, CEO of Parallels. “Parallels is proud to be a catalyst to a growing and powerful partner ecosystem designed to help service providers grow and profit from the cloud. We are delighted to acknowledge these partners at Parallels Summit 2013.”

 

The recipients of the 2012 Parallels Partner Awards are:

 

 

Congratulations to all the winners and finalists!

 

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.

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.

 

Cloud Services, Domain, Hosting, Parallels Cloud Services, service provider, Small Businesses, TLD, Web Hosting

Massive Change to the Web Culture is Just around the Corner, Offering Exciting Opportunities to Web Hosters

 

http://www.something.com. This string of characters — the domain address for a web site or other internet service — pervades our culture. Today, virtually every organization and individual has confronted the challenge of reducing their professional or personal brand to fit into this namespace. But, after years of planning and debate, a big change is coming that will alter the way organizations and individuals identify themselves online; they will be able to personalize their web addresses in ways never imagined before. Even more compelling, Web Hosters will have a ripe new opportunity to “cash in” on this new sales conduit.  

 

The governing body that manages Top Level Domains (TLD) is set to authorize and release over 1,000 new TLDs starting next year. Some examples of these include: .APP, .HOME, .STORE, .BLOG, .BOOK, .MOVIE and .MUSIC. Businesses and consumers will be able to get descriptive, memorable and relevant domain names for their Web Presence to a degree unprecedented in the history of the Internet. If I owned a bookstore in Manhattan, I probably already have .COM or .NET domain just like every other bookstore in the world. Next year I could have a .NYC domain to make search more relevant and a .BOOK domain to clarify that I am a bookstore and a .BARGAINS domain if I sell used books.  

 

As a Web Hoster, you have a unique opportunity to grow or create your domain business. You will benefit from the increase in registration volume and higher prices that many of the specialized TLDs are expected to achieve. You can tailor offers and packages around specific TLDs that optimize customer acquisition and generate new revenue from existing customers. 

 

At Parallels we want to make taking advantage of this opportunity as easy as possible by attracting customers now and preparing for the coming change. 


  • • Sign-up to resell domains with Parallels’ Domain Name Network .  We waive typical set-up fees and provide you with pre-negotiated volume discounts.
  • • Leverage tools and resources, provided through our close partnership with eNom, to start capturing customer interest now. We give you ready-to-go marketing toolkits and access to the ‘TLD Watchlist” application that can be directly integrated into your Website. When new TLD launch phases roll-out, additional tools and resources will become available allowing you to easily convert interest to orders.

 

This is a huge evolution of the Web and an opportunity not to be missed. Help your customers be successful by being their trusted Web advisor and generate new revenue at the same time… Don’t get left behind!