This has been a busy week for Parallels, to say the least. On Monday and Tuesday, the web hosting software provider held its partner conference, Parallels Summit 2008, in Washington, D.C. The conference took in the largest turnout in the event's three year history.

At the summit, Parallels announced several key partnerships with companies like Rack-Soft, Solar VTG, emerion WebHosting GmbH and Absolute Performance.

Recent IDC market data reveals that Parallels is the world’s second-largest virtualization solutions provider. The company produces many virtualization solutions, including a desktop virtualization solution, Parallels Desktop for Mac, which was the first to enable Apple computer users to run Windows and Mac OS X simultaneously, a container-based server virtualization solution, Parallels Virtuozzo Containers and a control panel, Parallels Plesk.

Parallels software powers more than 250,000 servers and 1,100,000 desktops, and services more than 10,000,000 end-users every day, says the company.
 
"Being named by Red Herring as one of the 100 top companies in North America is a great honor and further demonstrates our commitment to providing our customers with great technology that delivers real value every day," says Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels. "It is a tribute to our more than 900 employees around the world who continue to develop and market innovative software with the highest level of professionalism and customer service."

Red Herring publishes annual lists of the top private companies, offering "an important part of the company's tradition of identifying new and innovative technology companies and entrepreneurs." The firm's editors singled-out companies like Google, eBay and Skyp in their early days, touting them as leaders that would change the way we live and work.