(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Virtualization and automation software developer Parallels (www.parallels.com) is taking off on a seven-country roadtrip, where it will explain to its partners and other hosts, cloud services providers and Internet service providers at each stop how to best deploy applications and services in a hosted environment.
In less than two weeks, the EMEA Partner Roadshow will provide attendees with insights and best practices, and also provide practical examples of how hosts can use white-label reselling to create a lucrative indirect sales channel with a wider portfolio of applications, while maintaining brand independence and client loyalty, according to Parallel’s Thursday announcement.
“Leveraging Parallels we were able to increase our average revenue per user, deploy new services faster and reduce operating costs,” said Cobweb Solutions chief technology officer Dan Germain, who uses Parallels to provide multiple-vendor solutions and flexible billing and administration across its different service offerings.
White-label reselling lets hosts resell and deliver SaaS applications including Microsoft Exchange, Windows SharePoint, and Microsoft Office Communications Server in a hosted environment. In the SaaS model, end user customers subscribe to applications instead of purchasing them, typically on a monthly basis. This pay-as-you go approach offers small and medium-sized businesses affordable, easy-to-use, low-cost services.
“It was critical for us to find a provider able to properly support white-label services at a modular and infrastructure level, so that our partners can resell Cobweb services under their own brand,” Germain said. “Parallels enables Cobweb to increase revenue from each and every customer, both now and in the future.”
An April 2009 study by IDC predicts that European SaaS market will grow, growing from €237 million in 2004 to more than €6 billion in 2013. As SaaS gains mainstream acceptance in Europe, SaaS’s continued strong growth will make it a rising star in a very largely depressed European software market.
The 2009 Parallels Partner roadshow will be take place in: Stockholm, Sept. 1; Amsterdam, Sept. 3; Warsaw, Sept. 7; Cologne, Sept. 10; Paris, Sept. 14; Madrid, Sept. 17; and London, Sept. 21. Those wishing to register for the events can do so on Parallels’ EMEA 2009 website (www.parallels.com/emea2009).
Parallels has more than 200 partners in Western Europe, including 90 percent of the top EMEA hosts. Parallels’ white label reseller programs are particularly popular, letting European hosts resell Parallels products and offer a wider array of applications without losing their unique brand independence and client loyalty.
“Our goal is to provide Parallels’ partners a continual growth path to help expand business,” Parallels service provider division president Jack Zubarev said in a statement. “The Parallels Partner Roadshow will educate partners and demonstrate how they can utilize Parallels virtualization and automation products to power their hosting and managed services offerings.”
The Parallels Partner Roadshow has already confirmed the attendance of partners including open-source technology solutions provider Red Hat (www.redhat.com), and unified communications software provider Unison (www.unison.com), as well as online security provider VeriSign (www.verisign.com), which offers Parallels partners secure sockets layer certificates, user authentication products, and domain name services to provide them a trusted online business environment.
