John Zanni, Parallels VP of service provider marketing and alliances
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Having been partners for nearly seven years, IT software giant Microsoft and hosting software provider Parallels (www.parallels.com) have built a strong relationship over the years.
And with its latest partnership, which will see the syndication for Microsoft Office 365 cloud productivity suite through Parallels Automation (www.parallels.com/ca/products/automation), this relationship will once again prove to be mutually beneficial for both companies.
The strategic partnership allows MSPs and cloud service providers using Parallels Automation to more rapidly deploy Office 365 suite bundled with their other cloud services.
Launched earlier this year, Office 365 is a full suite of desktop applications like Word and Excel, and hosted versions of Microsoft’s Server products, delivered and accessed over the Internet.
With the launch, Microsoft created a new category of 20 syndication partners, who will bundle Office 365 cloud services with their own set of complementary services.
Parallels Automation will extend its support for automated delivery, provisioning, and billing of service delivery to Microsoft Office 365 Syndication Partners.
“Service providers get all the benefits of selling Office 365 and those world-class services,” said Parallels VP of service provider marketing and alliances John Zanni, “as well as going to market within weeks instead of months, making it easier for them to bundle other services to create unique and differentiated offers that they can take to market and increase their revenue and profitability.”
So far, Parallels has worked with over half of th Microsoft syndication partners, such as KPN, AppRiver, and TDC Hosting.
In addition to the Microsoft Office 365 syndication partnership, Parallels has also introduced an ISV enablement program for Microsoft developer partners, which lets them use their applications in the APS format.
The company has expanded support for Microsoft technologies and tools to service providers to help them become true full-service cloud service providers.
By upgrading Parallels Automation support for Microsoft’s System Center Hyper-V Cloud, service providers can offer an IAAS solution either directly or through resellers.
“We have an updated Parallels Automation which has capabilities to work with the latest Microsoft technology,” said Zanni. “It has enhanced support for System Center, Hyper-V Cloud, Exchange Server 2010 SP1, SharePoint Server 2010. This version allows service providers to resell these Microsoft offerings so they can increase their revenue.”
Microsoft ISVs will be able to bring these new services to market faster, more easily, and more profitably — all without the investment in expensive infrastructure.
VARs will especially take interest in the Microsoft System Center Hyper-V cloud, as the product enables them to create a full IaaS cloud service from within Parallels Automation.
“We have built-in resell capabilities,” said Zanni, “so without having to write code, they can turn on their own reseller channel and sell these services either in a branded, co-branded or white-label fashion through a system integrated channel or VAR channel so they can extend the range of cloud services without having to invest in infrastructure.”
Zanni and the rest of the Parallels team are currently at Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2011 where they are previewing these products as well as others.
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