Parallels outlined a new cloud focus its Parallels Summit in Orlando and named current president Birger Steen to replace its founder and outgoing CEO, Sergeui Beloussov.
In the search for a new CEO, virtualization software maker Parallels
stayed close to home and named one of its own senior executives to the post.
Birger Steen, the current president of Parallels, has been promoted to CEO,
effective Feb. 23, the company said.
Company founder and outgoing CEO Sergeui Beloussov announced
Steen's appointment during his keynote speech on Feb. 23 at Parallels Summit in
Orlando. Steen joined Parallels six months ago and since then has overseen the
launch of Parallels Desktop 6 for Mac software and
Parallels Plesk Panel 10,
said Beloussov.
"During his six months with Parallels, Birger has
proven himself to be an incisive decision-maker and capable leader for all
areas of our business," said Beloussov.
Best known for its desktop and server virtualization
software, the majority of
Parallels business comes from tools for hosting
providers to manage virtual and physical servers, to deploy applications to the
cloud and to enable integration with third-party cloud services. At the
conference, Parallels outlined its strategy for bringing small and medium
businesses to the cloud.
Steen said he will focus on expanding cloud services for
small to medium businesses.
By 2015, the small business cloud will be hot, a $50 billion
market, Beloussov said at the conference. According to a Parallels report that
was released at the conference, the cloud services market was valued at $10.6
billion in 2010 and is expected to increase to $28.6 billion this year, with
almost $12 billion in infrastructure services.
"SMBs cloud consumption has hit the wide adoption curve
and driving a sea change in the cloud industry," said Steen. SMBs with
fewer than 100 employees account for over 80 percent of total cloud spending,
according to the report.
SMBs are increasingly asking IT providers for cloud services.
But most cloud giants, such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, have not really
focused on the small business market, said Beloussov.
Parallels announced Parallels Automation for Cloud
Infrastructure to help service providers "extend their offerings to SMBs
and become more profitable," said Steen. The API-based infrastructure is
hypervisor-agnostic, supporting Microsoft's Hyper-V and its own virtualization platform.
Support for VMware ESX is expected soon. Hyper-V-based clouds can be deployed
automatically with a full set of tools to manage the virtual machines and offer
self-service control panels.
Parallels is launching and supporting Hosted PBX for cloud-based
voice-over-IP services. Parallels estimates that SMB
hosted PBX will grow to
$3.9 billion in the United States this year, said Steen. Parallels Automation
would offer service providers provisioning and billing automation tools, making
it easier to resell hosted PBX services or a unified communications suite,
according to Steen.
Parallels will offer syndication services for Microsoft
Online Services and Microsoft Office 365 cloud environments. Customers choosing
the applications will receive it as part of their cloud environment with single-sign-on
and unified billing. Parallels also expanded the suite of Microsoft products
available to service providers, including Microsoft Exchange, Office
Communications Server, and Dynamics CRM, the company said.
Beloussov will continue as executive chairman of the board,
president and chief architect, focusing on strategy, innovation, alliances and
mergers and acquisitions. Prior to joining Parallels, Steen had been
vice-president of small and medium business distribution at Microsoft.
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