Bekker's Blog

Blog archive

Ingram Micro To Buy Odin Service Automation Platform

Ingram Micro is buying the Odin Service Automation platform from Parallels Holdings Ltd. in a deal announced Wednesday that will shake up the cloud services provider market.

Distribution giant Ingram Micro is one of the most important players in the emerging cloud services provider market, including Microsoft's Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program. In Microsoft's strategic CSP model, Ingram is one of the handful of 2-Tier distributors that serve as intermediaries for cloud service subscriptions between Microsoft and thousands of Microsoft partner resellers in each geographic market.

With Odin, Parallels developed a cloud marketplace technology infrastructure that provides APIs and storefronts to enable the provisioning, billing and managing of hundreds of cloud products by individual distributors, telcos and cloud services providers. In Microsoft's CSP ecosystem, Odin, AppDirect and Ensim Corp. had emerged to fill this technology niche.

The move toward vertical integration by Ingram Micro raises the stakes for other distributors, such as other U.S. Microsoft CSP 2-Tier distributors AppRiver, Intermedia, SherWeb, Synnex Corp. and Tech Data.

Ingram Micro expects to retain about 500 Odin employees when the deal closes later this month, assuming it meets closing conditions. Ingram Micro plans to keep using the Odin brand and to run the business as its own division led by executive vice president Nimesh Dave.

With the Odin business sold, Parallels will restructure itself as three business units owned by Parallels Holdings Ltd -- Parallels, Plesk and Virtuozzo. Parallels will be the name for the cross-platform solutions business unit, Plesk is the business unit for Parallel's Web management solutions for small businesses and hosters, and Virtuozzo will be the name for the unit for the container virtualization technology.

Posted by Scott Bekker on December 02, 2015


Featured

  • Microsoft Appoints Althoff as New CEO for Commercial Business

    Microsoft CEO and chairman Satya Nadella on Wednesday announced the promotion of Judson Althoff to CEO of the company's commercial business, presenting the move as a response to the dramatic industrywide shifts caused by AI.

  • Broadcom Revamps VMware Partner Program Again

    Broadcom recently announced a significant update regarding its VMware Cloud Service Provider (VCSP) program, coinciding with the release of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0, a key component in Broadcom’s private cloud strategy.

  • Closeup of the new Copilot keyboard key

    Microsoft Updates Copilot To Add Context-Sensitive Agents to Teams, SharePoint

    Microsoft has rolled out a new public preview for collaborative "always on" agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot, bringing enhanced, context-aware tools into Teams channels, meetings, SharePoint sites, Planner workstreams and Viva Engage communities.

  • Windows 365 Cloud Apps Now Available for Public Preview

    Microsoft announced this week that Windows 365 Cloud Apps are now available for public preview. This aims to allow IT administrators to stream individual Windows applications from the cloud, removing the need to assign Cloud PCs to every user.