[February 04, 2014]

Parallels Enables Over One Million Microsoft Cloud Services Subscribers

Parallels, a leading hosting and cloud services enablement provider, announced its partners have exceeded one million installed seats across Microsoft (News - Alert) Exchange and Office 365. The growth of business class e-mail seats powered by Parallels software, increasing at a rate of 72 percent year-over-year from December 2012, shows the growing demand among small to medium businesses (SMBs) for a comprehensive portfolio of cloud solutions to help increase IT efficiency.

Anticipating this growth, Parallels, a Microsoft Gold Certified partner, has been collaborating with Microsoft since 2007 to help telecom companies, domain hosting providers, distributors, managed service providers and VARs to deliver best-in-class, Microsoft-based cloud services for SMBs that constitute a significant portion of this growing market.

With Parallels, service providers are able to increase IT support for SMBs using Exchange and Office 365, as well as Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Lync, Microsoft SQL and Microsoft CRM. By surpassing 1 million installed seats across the Microsoft Exchange and Office 365 platforms, Parallels solidifies its position as one of Microsoft's top cloud management partners, and an industry leader that empowers hosters and service providers with the ability to quickly and efficiently offer scalable enterprise-grade services.

Solutions for a Growing Market

Parallels has seen increased adoption of enterprise-class cloud solutions as companies accelerate the shift of IT resources supporting critical operations to the cloud. According to IDC^*, the analyst firm expects worldwide spend on public IT cloud services to reach nearly $108 billion, more than double than the $47.4 billion spent in 2013.

"We pride ourselves in providing a service delivery platform that makes it easy to sell, provision and manage syndicated or locally hosted cloud services," said Birger Steen, chief executive officer, Parallels. "The above-market growth numbers reflect our deep experience in working with Microsoft. We continue to innovate to ensure service providers have on time access to the latest and greatest from Microsoft and all subsequent updates are transparent to the service provider."

"We are pleased to work with Parallels to expand our business with a broad and diverse cloud distribution channel and increase speed to market for our valued partners," said Eddie O'Brien, vice president, Operator Channels, Microsoft. "Parallels clearly understands the hosting and cloud needs of SMBs as demonstrated by the continued momentum of Microsoft partners using the Parallels platform with Office 365 and Hosted Exchange."

Making the Cloud Work for SMBs

While Microsoft Office 365 and Exchange are popular services among SMBs, Parallels understands that its partners need to be able to provide a wide variety of solutions so they can create custom-made packages that address the drastically different needs of SMBs. To help address this demand in variety, Parallels is constantly updating its platform to support solutions that are being requested from SMBs.

In addition to Office 365 and Exchange, Parallels recently announced support for Microsoft's Windows Azure Pack, bringing the power of Microsoft's Azure technologies into a service provider's datacenter. Additionally, Parallels supports Microsoft's Lync Hosting Pack that gives SMBs instant, collaborative and unified communications as well as Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft CRM.

With these solutions, Parallels partners such as AppRiver, Apptix, Cobweb and Outsourcery have seen substantial success from delivering Microsoft-based services.

"AppRiver chose Parallels Automation to help streamline new customer activations of our Microsoft Office 365 offerings," said Scott Paul, senior director, AppRiver. "Working with Parallels we were able to quickly implement a solution that delivers provisioning and management of the Office 365 platform, allowing us to focus on creating the high-quality experience our customers demand."

"Apptix has leveraged our extensive experience in the hosted services market to build a robust channel program," said David Ehrhardt (News - Alert), president and chief executive officer, Apptix. "Parallels Automation enables us to provide our channel partners flexible and diversified offerings featuring our core Microsoft-based communication and collaboration solutions."

"With Parallels Automation, everything is possible," said Julian Dyer, chief technology officer and cofounder, Cobweb. "Without it, we wouldn't be where we are today-and we wouldn't be able to offer our resellers the Microsoft-based Unified Communications services they need to be successful."

"We believe that all businesses and public sector organizations, regardless of their scale and location, should enjoy the benefits of cloud-based solutions," said Piers Linney, co-chief executive officer, Outsourcery. "By working with Parallels, Outsourcery has enhanced its relationship with its partners who can now expedite their route to market by easily integrating and upselling additional cloud services to their end customers."

This February, Parallels is hosting their annual Summit in New Orleans where attendees can learn more about the partnerships, market opportunities and future products from Parallels.

Source (News - Alert): * IDC Forecasts Worldwide Public IT Cloud Services Spending to Reach Nearly $108 Billion by 2017 as Focus Shifts from Savings to Innovation, September 2013.

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About Parallels

Parallels® is a global leader in hosting and cloud services enablement and cross-platform solutions. Parallels began operations in 2000 and has developed into a fast-growing software company with more than 900 employees across offices in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia.

For more information, please visit www.parallels.com/spp, follow us on Twitter (News - Alert) at www.twitter.com/ParallelsCloud, and Like Us on Facebook (News - Alert) at www.facebook.com/ParallelsCloud.

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