January 25, 2007 | Posted By : Liam Eagle at 5:28 PM PERMALINK | Blog Comments (3)

SWsoft Reveals Virtualization Subsidiary

I spent perhaps too much time puzzling over how to best combine the words "diversify" and "virtualization" in crafting this post, when the result of that work amounts to maybe a halfhearted (and mostly beside-the-point) chuckle.

Divirtualsify. Divirtualizify. Divirtualizationification.

You see what I mean.

SWsoft issued an announcement about its successes in 2006 this week, and, being as one of those successes was "MacWorld Readers' Choice Award and the first non-Apple product to win - Parallels Desktop," the company decided it was the right time to publicly discuss its control of the software company Parallels.

This may have been fairly well known already. I'm not sure. But it certainly wasn't officially widely known, as is now the case.

Parallels produces desktop virtualization software that, while compatible with Linux and Windows, is most popular among MacOS users (hence the MacWorld award). The company doesn't dabble in server virtualization just yet, though something is apparently in the works. The Parallels Desktop for Mac software (the award winner) enables Mac users to run Windows on their Apple machines.

SWsoft acquired the company about three years ago, an interesting diversification of SWsoft's bread-and-butter business, but the company has been operating pretty independent of SWsoft's other businesses since then.

This week, SWsoft CEO Serguei Beloussov and Parallels CEO Nick Dobrovolskiy sent a letter to employees explaining the choice to reveal the relationship, saying that the companies would remain separate and maintain their own identities. But we may begin to see the companies working together.

The letter discussed the breadth of solutions offered by the two companies in combination:

"The combination of SWsoft and Parallels means that we are the only company in the world to provide a complete suite of virtualization and automation software that includes operating system virtualization (Virtuozzo), desktop virtual machine technology (Parallels) and our range of automation solutions across all major computing platforms including Windows, Linux, MacOS and beyond."

And it mentioned some plans for future products:

"SWsoft and Parallels will be announcing more products that will enhance the choices available to IT professionals, developers and consumers. These will include a server edition of Parallels, as well as tools for managing multiple virtualization technologies - whether from SWsoft, Parallels or other vendors - with one user interface."

Tags: swsoft, parallels, virtualization

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November 22, 2006 | Posted By : Liam Eagle at 5:03 PM PERMALINK | Blog Comments (0)

Service Provider Speed Dating

One more thing about ISPCON.

I spoke to Jon Price on the last day of ISPCON, and we talked about the idea that some attendees were a little too agreeable to the idea of being pigeonholed as providers of just one thing when the resources to expand their horizons were literally right there in front of them.

I mentioned this in yesterday's feature, but one point in particular caught my attention.

Price said the high point of the conference for him came at the CEO Exchange (which I understand is widely considered the highlight of the show). As it has been known to do, the event ran late into the evening. And at some point a comment elucidated, for most of the executives that remained, exactly how their businesses could benefit from collaborating with a complementary business - in many cases a business operated by someone right there in the room.

Suddenly, says Price, visible connections between businesses were being made all over the room, tracing out the kind of collaborative spirit ISPCON meant to be about.

He's been working on building a real networking function into the conference. With a little more attendees, and a quick evaluation of their needs, conference organizers could provide attendees with a full dance card of possible collaborators, like a matchmaking service for the ISP business.

According to Price, however, attendees are a little reticent about providing more than just the basic details of their business when signing up for the conference.

Count me among the intrigued. I think this service could be as valuable as anything else ISPCON currently provides. The challenge for Jon Price is going to be encouraging service providers to cough up the details he'll need in order to make it happen.

Tags: ispcon, jon price, partnering

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