Beloussov's Explosive Keynote: A Summary

Parallels CEO Sergei Beloussov defined the company's direction and vision for the future in today's keynote:

Parallels Summit 2010 Keynote: Parallels’ CEO Pledges to Help Cloud Services Providers "Innovate, Optimize and Grow To Serve Small Businesses and Profit from the Cloud

MIAMI, FL – February 23rd, 2010 – Parallels CEO Serguei Beloussov outlined the company’s vision for the Cloud in his keynote presentation at Parallels Summit 2010. Beloussov advised more than 1100 service provider, telco, VAR and ISV attendees to recognize the huge opportunity presented by the small business need for Cloud services, a market which he predicted will grow to nearly $19 billion by 2013. To meet this considerable opportunity and “Profit from the Cloud”, Beloussov explained Cloud services providers and ISVs must innovate, optimize and grow to develop full-service offerings.  He pledged Parallels’ ongoing and increased support for this through the company’s investment in partnerships and complete realignment to a Cloud services-oriented company structure.

 
“Considerable growth is predicted in Cloud services for small businesses as they provide a low cost, easy solution for these organizations, who need an increasing range of IT services, but have very little IT knowledge and limited budgets,” said Beloussov.  “The complexity of IT requirements can easily become an expensive and time-consuming distraction from the core business. Buying services through the Cloud removes both the significant initial expense of buying in-house IT operations, and simplifies decision-making as small businesses can get a range of business IT services from a single provider at a low monthly subscription rate. 

 
“For Cloud services providers, this represents a significant opportunity; however, it is essential for businesses to innovate, optimize and grow if they are going to compete successfully and increase profitability.  Innovation is critical in order to keep meeting evolving customer needs: Cloud services providers need to drive better bundled services and develop new “sticky” offerings, while ISVs need to refine their technology.  This will help them open new revenue streams and attract new customers,” added Beloussov. 

“To grow and be successful, Cloud services providers need to offer a complete range of services for small businesses. Improving the quality of existing services and offering customer loyalty programs are critical steps in building customer confidence and growing the loyal customer base,” said Beloussov.
 

During the keynote, Beloussov announced that Parallels will continue to invest in supporting its partners achieve these goals, providing support for marketing, training, certification and in other areas of the business beyond the technology itself. In addition, the company is realigning its business and engineering functions to focus on the service areas that are important to its partners and customers. The company will focus on four key services areas spanning and encompassing Parallels’ product portfolio: Shared Web Hosting Services; Messaging and Collaboration; Virtualized Infrastructure Services (VPS); and SaaS and Other Applications.  Each of these services groups will be led by a senior Parallels’ executive championing the space and working closely with Parallels’ partners to identify and meet their needs.

 
The Shared Web Hosting Services group will be led by Craig Bartholomew, VP of Panels at Parallels, who brings considerable expertise from over 20 years as a business leader at Microsoft.  Craig’s group will be working with partners to help them develop their Shared Web Hosting Services offering, encouraging the innovation and optimization that will enable them to grow and retain their customer base.  The service area will be supported by a range of Parallels products, including Parallels Plesk Panel 9.5, Parallels Hosting Panel 10 (to be launched later this year) and Parallels Automation High Efficiency Shared Hosting.
 

The Messaging and Collaboration group will be led by Oleg Melnikov, one of the founders and VP of Automation at Parallels. As a veteran of the service provider space, he has a strong understanding of the opportunities and challenges that face them and will be working closely with Parallels’ partners and customers to help them take advantage of the trend towards unified communications and increased levels of collaboration so they can grow their service offerings for greater up-sell and cross-sell opportunities. In 2010, this service area will be supported by Parallels Automation developments providing support for Microsoft Hosted Exchange 2010, MS OCS and VOIP services.

 
The Virtual Infrastructure Services group will be led by Amir Sharif, VP of Virtualization at Parallels, who bring considerable product management experience, most recently from VMware. Amir’s group will be helping Parallels’ partners and customers innovate and grow by offering profitable virtualized services; predicted to be the biggest area of growth in Cloud services in the next five years. This service area will see developments across Parallels’ virtualization products in 2010, including the launch of Parallels Server for Mac Bare Metal Edition at Parallels Summit 2010, an update for Parallels Virtuozzo Containers (version 4.6) and the launch of Cloud Utility Computing later in the year.
 

The SaaS and Other Applications group will be led by Matt Domo, CTO at Parallels, who brings considerable expertise as a former general manager at Amazon Web Services and Microsoft veteran.  This group will focus on helping new ISVs find new channels to market, enabling Cloud services providers to innovate new bundled services offerings and grow their up-sell and cross-sell opportunities.  To support this service area, Parallels is introducing Parallels Partner Marketplace v2 and Application Packaging Standard 1.2 at Parallels Summit 2010.

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About Parallels 

Parallels is a worldwide leader in virtualization and automation software that optimizes computing for consumers, businesses, and cloud services providers across all major hardware, operating systems, and virtualization platforms. Founded in 1999, Parallels is a fast-growing company with more than 700 employees in North America, Europe, and Asia. For more information, please visit www.parallels.com.

 
 
Rohan Hutchings
Senior Public Relations Manager, Service Provider Division

Parallels, Inc.
500 SW 39th Street, Suite 200
Renton, WA 98057
w: +1 425 282 1787
c: +1 206 335 2677

Winners are Grinners at the Inaugural Parallels Partner Awards

Parallels inaugural Partner Awards are being announced live on stage.  Here is the announcement:

  

 

    

_____________________________

Cloud Industry leaders Earn Prestigious Parallels Partner Awards for innovation, branding, inspiration and growth at the Parallels Summit 2010 

Miami, FL, February 23, 2010 – Worldwide cloud enablement leader, Parallels, today announced the winners of its inaugural Partner Awards at the Parallels Summit 2010. 

Highlighting excellence in the industry, the awards recognize the outstanding achievement of four Parallels Partners that have realized growth, shown innovative strategies and optimized their business for future success.  

Category winners are Rookie of the Year: Arsys; Cloud Innovator: Wallace Systems; Brand Champ: ASPserveur; and Most Inspiring: Jason Frisch, President of Tsukaeru.net. 

“We are proud to recognize our partners for outstanding achievement in launching new Cloud services.  These companies show a true commitment to growing their business in partnership with Parallels. Jack Zubarev, President of Worldwide Service Providers at Parallels. “Parallels helps create profitable services that enable our partners to offer innovative technology that benefit small businesses.” 

The Parallels Rookie of the Year Award recognizes significant growth in sales during the first year in the Partner Program.  It was awarded to Arsys, Spain’s largest service provider, who introduced Virtual Private Servers and Parallels Plesk Panel in 2009.   

Commenting on the award, “We are experiencing continuous growth in market share and we are committed to remaining number one in our market. We chose Parallels as our partner in this project because it allows us to offer maximum reliability, meeting the needs of our more than 250,000 clients,” Faustino Jiménez, CEO of Arsys said. 

Innovation is a key message of the Parallels Summit 2010 and  the Cloud Innovation award acknowledges the Partner who is leading the way in cutting-edge innovation and offering cloud computing services to SMBs.  Wallace Systems was the recipient of the award for its innovative solution for Logibanque.  Wallace System integrated Parallels Business Automation software with Logibanque’s Streaming technology and Endeavor’s Application Jukebox. 

“Combining virtualization, streaming and billing automation technologies allowed us to create a revolutionary business model that opens new revenue opportunities to the hosting market,” Pierre Marguelles of Wallace System said.  “Logibanque is the first integrated turnkey solution for on-demand portal creation and management and brings the hosting and ISV world closer.” 
 
 
 

The Brand Champ award recognizes the partner who implemented the most effective changes to their website during the Parallels “Caught Red Branded” campaign and improved its sales conversion rate as an outcome. 

“It makes sense for us to support the Parallels brand.  It is well recognized, represents quality products and it is committed to helping make us more profitable so we do everything possible to protect and enhance their brand,” Sebastien Enderlé at APSserveur said. 

One of the most widely-anticipated awards was the announcement of “Most Inspiring”, which recognizes an individual rather than a company.   This inaugural award was given to Jason Frisch of Tsukaeru.net. 

“I am humbled by this award.  To be recognized by my peers with such an award is truly gratifying,” CEO of Tsukaeru.net, Jason Frisch said.  “At Tsukaeru.net we have an amazing team that’s not afraid of challenges and trying new things.  We pride ourselves on being a leader of new technologies and strategies that embrace the Cloud.” 

Live Blog: Serguei Beloussov Opening Keynote

Serguei Beloussov, Parallels Chairman and CEO, takes the stage to a full house.    

9:56am

Serguei showing slide after slide about worldwide growth in SMB IT spending.  

What we sell is per business, not per user.  The small business provides 95% of the revenue in hosting, each of us in the room.

Serguei walks through vignettes of small businesses:

• Flower Dressing
• Dog hotel and training
• Small law firm

These very small businesses need a web site, email, payments, orders, contacts, time tracking, booking, collaboration, billing.

 

10:00am

Clouds enable small businesses and make them more efficient.  Quote a Microsoft study showing correlation between cloud services and efficiency.

Opportunity is shifting: Messaging -> Infrastructure -> SaaS

Revenue growing from $8.9B to $19.7B in 2013.

Small business will remain the largest segment and will grow by $1B per year through 2013.

Compares the cloud to a full-service hotel: provide the services that people want, and you can reduce churn, charge less upfront for the room, and grow your business.

10:05am

Serguei keeps underscoring what a small business is, noting that the flower shop may be using MobileMe to publish its sites and handling its email.  

How do you Profit form the cloud?

• Small Business Cloud opportunity is HUGE
• the threat of giants while not immediate is CERTAIN
• You must move forward and stay ahead of the CURVE
• Innovate, optimize and grow.

Innovate:

• Develop new services (back to the hotel with a bed vs full service for customer stickiness) 
• Drive better bundled services
• Develop new business model

Optimize:

Improve time to market for new services

create a better customer experience

Optimize Operations (be paranoid about costs

Portugal Telecom outgrew ability to cost-effectlively provide shared hosting and expand new services.  PT used Parallels Automation for shared hosting for 16,000 accounts, expanded to Hosted Exchange for 300,000 accounts.

Grow:

Up-selling and cross-selling

Improving the quality of your offerings

Grow Customer satisfaction through loyalty and channel programs

 

10:16am

Go Daddy President and COO Warren Adelman has taken the stage to discuss the Go Daddy/Parallels Partnership

Danika Patrick is helping to popularize the cloud, hosting, and domain names.

The Go Daddy/Parallels partnership began in 2004.  Warren tells a funny story about how they ended up going with SWSoft over competitors (who were ultimately bought by Parallels).

Parallels Small Business Panel: "We think we will be very successful with Parallels Small Business Panel for reaching small businesses."

Sergeui teases Warren's speech tomorrow, and an announcement Warren will make then.

 

10:21am

Sergeui is introducing the new Parallels focus.

Previously Parallels has been a very product-focused organization and service.

In reality, what makes your service successful is a solution: several components combined together in a useful group, selling/billing options that helps differentiate the business and service plan offerings, and costs that can be attractive to customers but still profitable.  "We are now focusing our efforts around your services success."

Sergeui sees a price floor in shared hosting, where businesses will not expect to drop below that mark.

 

Parallels is announcing a specific focus with subject-matter experts:

Craig Bartholomew, VP of Panels at Parallels, is highlighted, and his speech about upcoming products and services.  Parallels announces that coming soon in 2010 we will see Parallels Plesk Panel 9.5, Parallels Hosting Panel 10 with marketplace, and Parallels Automation update.

10:27am

Head of Messaging and Collaboration Services will be Oleg Melnikov, who is the VP of Automation.  Parallels will announce Parallels Automation SX Exchange 2010, MS OCS, VOIP services.

In the Virtualized Infractructure Services (VPS) space, Amir Sharif is the VP of Virtualization, joining from VMWare.  Coming in 2010 Parallels Virtuozzo Containers v 4.6, Parallels Server for Mac Bare Metal Edition, and Cloud Utility Computing C2U.

For SaaS, Parallels' resident expert will be Matt Domo, Parallels CTO.  Parallels will see coming in 2010: Common Services Arthictecture, Parallels Partner Marketplace v2, and Application Packaging Standard 1.2.  Matt is now on stage walking through the architecture.

For a full update of Matt's work, make sure you check out his session today at 3:35pm.  Lots of good stuff here that I simply can't type fast enough.

10:43am

Serguei emphatically says that The Time to Act is NOW!  

Parallels is your partner in the Cloud!

And Serguei asks everyone in the audience to email him directly with requests.

Live Blog: Melanie Posey talks "Cloud Trends"

Melanie Posey kicks off Parallels summit with her keynote "Cloud Trends" at Parallels Summit '10.  Melanie is the Research Director of IDC’s Web Hosting Services and Telecom Services Vertical Views.

9:12am

Melanie takes the stage following a funny video of Sergeui getting a tattoo.  

We get an overview of where she is taking us, then she dives right in:

The big companies will navigate the cloud on their own, but SMBs need service providers

The service model of Cloud has been around for years, though its name has changed.  

"The Cloud is like pornography, you know it when you see it."

9:16am

Benefits of the Cloud:

• More efficient
• Simpler to adopt
• Faster to deploy
• Scalable to need
• Priced to use
• Broader reach

Cloud platforms enable new pricing and usage model, as well as cost tracking.

 

9:22am

The benefits and attributes of the Cloud are "makes them more accessible and makes them more extensible."

Melanie put up a stacked bar graph that demonstrates that there is a subset of IT that will not be "cloudifiable" in the short term.  Worldwide spending on IT Cloud Services represents 5% of the market today with a 26% CAGR, growing to 10% in 2013 ($44B).  

 

9:27am

Asia Pacific has high familiarity with Cloud Computing, but a lot of resistant to change.  The resistance may be to outsourcing in general, but may also be reaction that it is really what they've been doing all along.  Melanie points out that resistance to adopting cloud may reduce when characterizing cloud as an extension of IT outsourcing.

Next up?  Europe.  The UK is in the forefront of cloud adoption based on the @ of respondents using 7 or more IT cloud services (13%).  Then Nordics (7.5%), Germany (4%), Spain (4%), France, Benelux.

9:32am

"Adoption of cloud is lagging behind the conversation about cloud"

We are still in the early adopter phase, looking to "cross the chasm" to the Early Majority.  Thanks Prof Moore! (Go Stanford!)

Cloud not a particular "what".  It is not a new services infrastructure.  It is a delivery mechanism that enables a set of services.

 

9:36am

Those who are moving from software to cloud will need to beware of Cloud Natives, which have an early advantage over Cloud Immigrants. 

Large businesses will use cloud offerings to source pieces of the infrastructure.  Small businesses will consume the applications directly, which makes the IT Complexity disappear

9:41am

Perceived benefits of the cloud to SMBs

1. Pay for what you use (77%)
2. Easy/fast to deploy to end-users (76%)
3. Monthly payment model (76%)
4. Always offers the latest functionality (67%) [versions and maintenance/upgrades]
5. Reduced in-house staff/skills required (64%)
6. IT systems standardization (64%)
7. Simplified systems/information sharing w/business partners (63%)
8. Seems like the way of the future (50%)

 

9:47am

Cloud does not need to mean commoditization.  There will be an evolution toward new ecosystem-driven partnerships.  No single entity "owns" or "dominates" the cloud.

Selling a fully-integrated infrastructure solution is not enough. SMBs need complete solutions.  Cloud ecosystems allow service providers to aggregate services into complete solutions.

9:50am

Melanie offers her Essential Guidance

1. Position cloud as evolution (next-generation hosting) not revolution
2. Embrace the could, but make it your own: Access to technoogy/business applications is key, not infinite scalability or usage0based component pricing
3. Leverage cloud to refind your brand: expand marketing focus to embrace SMB IT consumers, not just developers, integrators and IT managers
4. SMBs are cautious by nature and suspeicious of hype.  Position cloud as a means to an end: A sourcing strategy for unmet business needs.

And... we're done.  On to Serguei.

Video & music from the opening night party at Summit

The opening night party of Parallels Summit brought cuban sandwiches, paella, and people who use Plesk all in one room for a host of good times (pun only slightly intended).  

Some of you asked last night about the party soundtrack. In the interest of getting everyone awake and moving this morning, we'll post a few of the tracks here

Kings of Leon - My Party Remix

Vampire Weekend - A-Punk

Swag Review at Summit

The exhibition hall at Parallels Summit was a busy place last night, and given that we all will be walking through it six times or so as we go about our summiting, I'm guessing that won't change.

Given that, I went around to visit with each exhibitor to assess the most intriguing part of any good conference: the most unique swag.  

The two winners in my book are:

MessageLabs has an odd take on a swiss army knife, bringing together an unusually foursome: level + measuring tape + sticky notes + pen.  

 

And ParaScale has a little dancing robot guy that is just the thing to turn a weary traveler into a super-parent upon return to the hometown.  Enjoy the video.

More swag updates probably later today.

Catching big fish at Parallels Summit

 

The hallways were bustling on "Day Zero" of Parallels Summit here in beautiful Miami.  Just about everyone had arrived by last night, and filled the halls with chatter.  This is my first Summit, but as an outsider it really looks like equal parts business conference, off-the-hook party, and high school reunion.  Everyone grabbed their badges and got reacquainted in the exhibition hall.  There were lots of handshakes, hugs, and stories to tell before heading to the Monday night party.

The best story of the night I heard was about George Karidis from Softlayer who, along with Nathan Day of Softlayer and Dan Havens of Parallels, managed to catch a 200-pound bull shark while out on their fishing exhibition.  Just to show that this is not "fish story" Dan sent me some pictures that are just mind-blowing.  Softlayer is apparently killing it in the cloud and on the water.  The nearly 7-foot man-eater fought for an hour, while four guys reeled it in.

 

There were no reports of whether George, Dan or Nathan actually "jumped the shark."  More reports on that later.

Looks like this massive fish will be stuffed and mounted for display at the Softlayer office, bringing shrieks of terror during all future Take Our Daughters to Work days.  Congrats guys!

Today is going to be a full one, so get rested, have a good breakfast, and come join us at 9am.

 

Parallels Small Business Panel Update

Parallels Small Business Panel 10 was initially released three months ago, and has seen some impressive growth in the web hosting space since then.  For those of you who just joined us, Parallels Small Business Panel 10.1 gives users an intuitive interface designed to connect employees to the right applications, which can be installed with a single click with no need for special training or technical knowledge. In addition, Parallels Small Business Panel incorporates the functionality of additional Parallels solutions for free, including Parallels Sitebuilder and Parallels Power Pack.  It is ideal for small business owners without the budget for a dedicated IT team who still need quality web hosting.

In the past three months, several successful web hosting companies have started offering Parallels Small Business Panel to their users.  These companies include The Planet, Softlayer, Softcom, Codero, Layershift, ServInt, Arsys, Network Group Europe, Host Europe and others.  Recently, web hosting giant GoDaddy (of banned Superbowl commercial fame) has gotten on board and will now be offering Parallels Small Business Panel 10.1 to an even wider set of users.

If you haven't yet, you should check out the Small Business Panel demo.  If you're interested in learning more about the Panel and the rest of the Parallels line (or if you just like Florida sun) come down to the Parallels Summit in Miami next week 

Robson Communications on the Summit

This is a guest post by Martin Robson, President/CEO of Robson Communications Inc. 

Robson Communications Inc. is a leader in dedicated and managed hosting in Canada. Robson has had success as a result of being able to offer fully automated enterprise hosting solutions with exceptional customer service, uptime and reliability. It's this approach that has enabled Robson to have a 98% client retention rate and shown over 100% growth year after year in both the Canadian and US markets in the SMB space. Robson is also only 1 of 5 Platinum Parallels Partner in Canada, an achievement that helps validate its commitment to deploying industry leading automation, virtualization and control panel solutions for their clients.

The team from Robson Communications Inc. is very excited to be attending the Parallels Summit in Miami Feb 22-24 2010. Parallels has always had a great pulse on the ever changing needs in the hosting industry and it's for this reason that Robson is looking forward to taking part in the Summit. The breakout of technical, business and industry discussions is a great value add, and it allows our team to attend the speaking engagements and events that make the most sense for our business. The flexibility of the agenda and the profile of the speakers at the summit should prove to be not only highly informative, but beneficial to the continued accelerated growth of Robson in to 2010.

The recent addition of Parallels Small Business Panel to the Parallels suite of products has really caught the attention of Robson and its clients. In an industry where a majority of customers who use Plesk and don't take advantage of 75% of what it has to offer, the Parallels Small Business Panel is a fantastic fit and has shown a lot of traction with Robson's SMB clients. Robson's technical team is looking forward to getting more information on this and any new products/trends coming down the pipe in 2010.

There is a big shift in the hosting industry with how hosting providers are offering Cloud Computing and Virtualization to its clients. With all the great vendors, partners, industry experts and speakers attending the Parallels Summit in Miami we know this will be a conference we don't want to miss!

 

Craig Bartholomew Brings the (Miami) Heat to Summit

 

This is a guest post by Parallels Summit speaker Craig Bartholomew.

It's only three weeks until Summit, so I thought I'd share a bit of what I'm planning to share.  Before I get to the meat of it, I guess I should say that one thing I will be sharing is 2 tickets to the Tuesday night Miami Heat game.  I heard a little rumbling around the office that speakers will be giving out prizes in their sessions.  I thought I would beat them to it by ponying up 2 tickets to see Dwyane Wade and K-State's own Michael Beasley tear it up.  The tickets will go to those who ask or tweet the best question during my session, so get ready.  

To get you warmed up, let me tease my presentation a bit here.  As always, feel free to send me your feedback.

We are taking our Plesk business very seriously, and you will see lots of excitement around it.  We’ll ship and explain some new things at the Summit – and we’ll also share our Roadmap going forward.  We’ll talk about what we’re doing to help you get better Support, and how you can lower your Support costs on to your end customers.  Most important – we’ll be talking about how we’re trying to walk in your shoes – thinking of how you make more money, get better margins, increase your customer satisfaction, and reduce your churn.   We are thinking like business partners with you – and we’re looking forward to sharing our thinking and path forward. 

I’m also looking forward to hearing from you, our customers.  Whether it’s a question in advance or at the Summit or whether it’s a meeting with me or my team, the more we can connect with you and hear from you, the happier I’ll be.

For the rest of you speakers (I'm talking to you Jack and Kim), the gauntlet has been thrown down.  What have you got?