(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Virtualization and automation software developer Parallels (www.parallels.com) has released version 4.4 of Parallels Business Automation, a complete business support system designed to address service providers’ online ordering and order processing needs.
According to the company’s Thursday announcement, Parallels Business Automation 4.4 addresses all aspects of billing for web hosts, independent Software as a Service vendors, enterprises and Internet service providers.
Parallels’ Business Automation streamlines these organizations’ existing operations by automating all their online ordering and order processing, including work flow automation, reseller management, marketing promotions, as well as billing, taxation, reporting and fraud detection.
“Parallels Business Automation 4.4 enables service providers to focus on their core business.” Parallels chief executive officer Serguei Beloussov said in a statement. “By automating with Parallels, hosting service providers will no longer need to waste critical resources developing back office functions and can instead focus their technical staff on revenue generation and service differentiation.”
The billing element of Parallels Business Automation 4.4 lets service providers bill in advance or auto-renew customers based on their initial service term. They can also create promotions or enforce early termination fees.
The new business automation solution also enables service providers to sell Secure Sockets Layer certificates, which assure clients of the security of their interactions. The automation process also reduces the service provider costs of administering SSL certificate by eliminating the time-consuming processes involved in manually purchasing, processing, delivering, tracking and renewing SSL certificates.
Ehsan Mirdamadi, chief executive officer of e-commerce-enabled web hosting provider Cirrus Tech, said that adding SSL certificate automation to Parallels Business Automation 4.4 was a logical addition and a great way to retain customers. “The manual process used in the past was labor-intensive and time-consuming,” Mirdamadi said in a statement. “By automating, our customer experience will be greatly improved and we expect service margins to increase.”
For resellers, Parallels Business Automation has unlimited hierarchical support, giving resellers and sub-resellers down to the customer level complete white label capability. It also supports complex reseller and channel structures, including affiliate, standard reseller and complex reseller support.
Parallels has been developing its automation product line for more than seven years and it now supports more than 7,000 service providers across 25 countries.
Parallels Business Automation 4.4 is currently available for purchase or as an integrated offering and BSS platform with Parallels Operations Automation 2.8.
