A screenshot shows an application being deployed via the Standing Cloud application marketplace.
Cloud application marketplace solution provider Standing Cloud announced on Wednesday that managed and cloud hosting provider SingleHop has made use of the Standing Cloud platform to launch Hosted Cloud Apps, a simple means for customers to find and launch cloud-based applications from inside its LEAP customer portal.
According to the announcement, the Hosted Cloud Apps product uses Standing Cloud’s solution to power a marketplace of more than 100 applications and development tools, configured to be instantly deployed and run on SingleHop infrastructure.
The deal is one of a few recent partnership arrangements with hosting and cloud providers announced by Standing Cloud in the last several months. Earlier this month, CMS developer SetSeed launched Standing Cloud system for customers to deploy its tools on cloud services from a variety of hosting providers. Last week, Standing Cloud announced that enterprise platform software firm Liferay integrated with the Standing Cloud platform to make it possible for Liferay users to easily deploy on a range of public cloud services.
The Standing Cloud platform is an interesting case because it sets out to deliver value in two directions. To hosting and cloud providers, it provides a means of offering customers a wide range of hosted applications – an easy way for a company focused on infrastructure to stack applications on top of that infrastructure. On the other hand, for the developers of those applications, it offers a means of being delivered via hosting providers, without requiring the work of establishing those channel partnerships themselves.
On the hosting provider side of that equation, SingleHop is a significant new partner from a potential revenue standpoint, and it may also end up being a notable endorsement among other hosting providers who may consider a similar partnership. Based in Chicago and started in 2006, SingleHop has evolved into one of the more notable players in the hosting space, with more than 10,000 servers under management, though Standing Cloud’s partners already include SoftLayer, Rackspace, GoGrid, Amazon and HP Cloud Services, among other notable companies.
“Making it easy to launch and run fully configured versions of popular applications, and manage them directly through our LEAP Portal is something our customers have been asking for, and Standing Cloud made it easy for us,” says SingleHop CEO Zak Boca, quoted in the press release announcing the partnership. “We were able to integrate the marketplace seamlessly into our console and infrastructure, and customize it with our own look and feel to provide a user experience that is point-click simple.”
Talk back: Have you examined Standing Cloud, or a similar application marketplace model for introducing new applications to your customers? Does SingleHop seem like a deal that would represent your use of the service well? Does today’s partnership, or the recent string of other deals, make you more likely to look over Standing Cloud? Let us know in the comments.
About Liam Eagle
Liam Eagle has worked as a contributor to the Web Host Industry Review since its inception in 2000, and as editor since 2003. He has been editor of the WHIR's print magazine since its launch. His daily involvement in the gathering and reporting of Web hosting news and his regular interaction with Web hosting leaders gives him an uncommonly broad appreciation of the issues and tends facing the business. Through his WHIR blog, Liam spots Web hosting trends and offers opinions on the industry-wide impacts of major developments and the motivation behind big announcements. Follow him on Twitter @liameagle
