In the first keynote to kick off the Parallels Summit 2013 in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Parallels CEO Birger Steen introduced Parallels Cloud Storage
In the first keynote to kick off the Parallels Summit 2013 in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Parallels CEO Birger Steen thanked a packed room at Caeser’s Palace for attending its annual “family event” before introducing several new Parallels products, including Parallels Cloud Storage.
Steen described a fundamental shift in the way small and mid-sized businesses are consuming cloud services. In 2009, every SMB in the cloud was only using one cloud service, and now, it has grown to four services.
Parallels predicts that this number will grow to seven over the next couple of years, and if service providers are good at upselling, crosselling and bundling their services, they will be in a position to capture this growth. According to Parallels, 90 percent of SMBs would buy bundled cloud services if given the option.
Steen continued to share statistics from its SMB Cloud Insights report, including how half of SMBs would pay more to have servers with unlimited storage, and 22 percent of US SMBs are using site building tools to design their websites.
Parallels Cloud Storage is already in use at ServInt, and COO Christian Dawson hit the stage to describe how unlike hardware-based solutions, PCS is a long-term cloud storage strategy for ServInt. With PCS, ServInt is able to leverage different types of storage for different workloads.
“The software-based solution basically future-proofs us,” Dawson says. “It is the perfect solution for us.”
Parallels says its cloud storage offering is low-cost, but high-availability, and “looks and talks like a SAN.” It is a seamless upgrade for existing Parallels Virtuozzo Containers and Parallels Server customers, and uses existing unused disk space on server nodes to create a centralize storage pool.
Parallels has enhanced APS 2.0 to offer a dynamic user interface for service providers to skin the interface with their own look and feel, as well as HTML 5 for mobile optimization. APS 2.0 features pluggable secure single sign-on, and app-to-app awareness and resource sharing to avoid screen scraping.
Parallels also announced Parallels Automation 5.5 is expected to ship later this year, and will include a streamlined navigation, and fully integrated APS 2.0.
Along with cloud storage, Parallels has launched Parallels Cloud Server which includes Virtuozzo Containers and Parallels Cloud Storage.
Parallels Plesk Automation, Parallels Presence Builder and Parallels Plesk Panel 11 round out the new products announced on Tuesday. The updated Plesk Panel will add features like business email, IaaS, telephony and a partner central designed to help partners make more money.
Along those lines, Parallels has introduced Parallels Cloud Accelerations Services to deliver product management and go-to-market consulting for service providers to help them create a differentiated portfolio and customer experience.
The new Parallels Partnernet portal features news, forums, go-to-market tools and assets, training, and developer product licenses.
“We at Parallels would like to be there in your moment so you grow and profit using our service delivery software, our ecosystem and our shared knowledge,” Steen says.
Talk back: What do you think of Parallels new products? Are you attending Parallels Summit? Let us know in a comment.
About Nicole Henderson
Nicole Henderson is the Editor in Chief of the Web Host Industry Review where she covers daily news and features online, as well as in print. She has a bachelor of journalism from Ryerson University in Toronto. You can find her on Twitter @NicoleHenderson.
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Too bad these people treat others so poorly.\
It was more important to them to be insulting snd not anwer questions thsn to be communicstive to their customer base.
Rating: F-