Continued growth of global Parallels Automation deployments is providing valuable insights into the cloud applications, and more specifically, the APS-enabled cloud applications that are gaining traction with service providers and with SMBs. Below are a few key trends:
- Cloud portfolios differ greatly between service providers and are shaped by key variables including core services offered, market segment served, and the individual cloud strategy of the provider. The APS catalog is growing both in diversity of cloud categories supported, and diversity of ISVs supporting each category. This continued growth is helping service providers to really tailor their offering to address unique market demands, and to compete with other providers in the regions they serve.
- Email is the common denominator for just about all service provider cloud portfolios. As would be expected, we see strong and consistent numbers for Microsoft Exchange and Office 365. Open-Xchange and Mail2World are gaining strong traction with providers offering a white-label, low-cost email services that can also be bundled with core–or other cloud–services. Email security and archiving services continue to be a popular and natural add-on for business-class email.
- Microsoft Lync is gaining wide adoption with service providers in all global regions, and is delivering strong and consistent growth rates in both instances and end-user seats. Deployed in fall 2012, the Microsoft Lync APS package is a proving to be a winner for service providers who have the right channels and sales engagement models. Microsoft’s Lync 2013 Hosting Pack, released this past May, is further accelerating provider deployments.
- Web presence continues to be an in-demand cloud category, particularly in maturing markets such as Latin America and Asia. For Parallels Automation partners self-hosting their web presence solution, success is supported by website builders and marketing tools such as Parallels Web Presence Builder. Growth in providers outsourcing their web presence solutions is supported by APS-enabled ISVs such as Hostopia and ePages.
- Business applications are varied with strong global and region-specific growth. Vidyo, Deskera and Hightail (formally Yousendit) are just a few of the business application providers to join the APS community this past year. While many of these APS packages serve a global market, others, such as Moysklad, a Russian-language CRM application, target specific regions and are showing strong growth with that focus. Business applications are absolutely leading APS cloud category growth, even outperforming Parallels SMB Cloud Insights research expectations.
To dig deeper into these trends and understand how they apply to your market, contact your Parallels account lead to schedule a market review, or contact me directly at srowan@parallels.com.
Steph Rowan, Market Development, Parallels