Parallels (Booth #819)
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Name: John Zanni
Title: Vice President, Service Provider Marketing and Alliances, at Parallels
RCP: What's the elevator pitch for your company to a Microsoft partner?
Zanni: Parallels is a Managed Microsoft Global ISV Partner and Gold Certified Partner focused on making it easy for service providers to meet the needs of small and medium businesses. Building on our long-term relationship with Microsoft, we have enabled Parallels Automation to provide the widest resale possibilities and accelerated time to market for Microsoft products of any billing and provisioning system. Microsoft products cover nearly the full range of customer needs from Windows-based hosting to virtualization to messaging and collaboration products. Microsoft is partner-friendly and Parallels Automation makes a great delivery mechanism for their products.
For partners who may not have thought about your company since the last WPC, what would they need to know about what you've been up to for the past 12 months?
In the past year, we've signed many key new deals -- then accelerated the deployment -- for Office 365 syndication with the likes of KT, UPN and AppRiver. In addition, other service providers including Sprint, Cincinnati Bell, Insight, Apptix, LuxCloud and KPN are all utilizing the capabilities in Parallels Automation to also launch other cloud and hosted services focused at small and medium business (SMBs). In fact, Gartner recently selected Parallels to its list of "Cool Vendors in Cloud Brokerage" while NetworkWorld also named Parallels as one of its "Ten Most Powerful SaaS Delivery Companies."
Out of your entire product portfolio, what's the product or service that Microsoft partners should be aware of right now?
Parallels Automation -- we continue to experience tremendous market momentum with service providers around the world, helping a rapidly-growing list of service provider partners quickly integrate and syndicate Microsoft Office 365 and deploy other services. The newest version -- Parallels Automation 5.4 -- also includes support for Microsoft Lync and hosted PBX services with BroadSoft. It includes Parallels Windows Provisioning Engine for migrating Microsoft Hosted Exchange (as HMC has been sunsetted). For the smaller and growing hoster, the new version of Parallels Plesk Panel 11 provides support for Microsoft WebMatrix and Windows Shared Hosting, too.
Are you announcing anything at WPC?
We expect to announce our progress with service providers for delivering Microsoft- hosted applications -- such as Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Office 365 -- plus an update on helping all ISVs cloud-enable their software with the Application Packaging Standard. The Application Packaging Standard (APS) has created a valuable new revenue opportunity -- for both service providers as well as ISVs -- by introducing a "pluggable" approach to enabling hosted and cloud applications and services. APS benefits ISVs by providing a sales channel through the over 9,000 Parallels service providers and resellers, who serve more than 10 million small and medium businesses (SMBs). In turn, hosters and other cloud service providers have access to the growing variety of APS-certified applications and services that are easy to deploy and maintain, including the full suite of Microsoft's APS-enabled hosted applications.
What should Microsoft partners keep an eye out for from your company over the next year?
Expect additional Microsoft cloud and hosted applications and services to become APS certified and packaged in the coming months. Microsoft partners should also watch as service providers who work with Parallels Business Consulting Services continue to grow rapidly.
Why should someone visit your booth this year (free stuff, amazing demo, contest, promotion, etc.)?
We have a live example of the power of our APS ISV and system integrator ecosystem in our WPC booth, as we'll be joined by partners Asigra, Iaso, Symantec, McAfee, Glowtouch, SoftcloudIT, Certivox and LuxCloud. Microsoft, of course, has already boarded the APS train with Microsoft Hosted Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Hyper-V, Microsoft Lync, Microsoft CRM and Microsoft Office 365 having all been APS certified and packaged. Any hoster or ISV that wants to learn more about the tremendous opportunity APS provides for packaging and delivering SaaS applications needs to spend time in our booth with our APS experts and these leading partners. When you do, pick up your "APS Bingo Card" and collect individual stamps from the APS partners. Then enter to win a NOOK Tablet 8GB, Xbox 360 250GB Kinect Bundle and a Samsung Series 9 11.6" Notebook. And, in keeping with Microsoft's green initiatives that extend to WPC, we'll also be handing out a Parallels 20-ounce, non-BPA tumbler with lid, perfect for your desk or getting an iced coffee refill at your favorite shop.
As a company, what are your goals for WPC this year?
Our goal is to reconnect with old friends and make some new ones. We have been partnering with Microsoft and its partner ecosystem since 2005. This is an opportunity for Parallels and its APS certified partners to show them how Parallels software and expertise can accelerate service providers' and ISV's time to cloud.
What's the profile of the ideal partner you're hoping to connect with at WPC this year?
Anyone who is looking to offer hosted and cloud services to meet the SMB IT needs through service providers.
Who are some of your team members a partner might meet at your booth?
Well, since I lead our service provider alliances effort, it's a no-brainer if any potential partner wants to meet me ([email protected]) or any member of my alliances team. Bill Gauthier is Parallels Senior Director of Microsoft Alliances and is perfect for partners seeking a better relationship with Redmond. Matt Vasey, our Senior Director of System Integrator Alliances, is our go-to guy for professional services. Elliot Curtis is our Senior Director of Channel Development. ISVs and SIs interested in APS need to chat with Alex Danyluk, our Senior Director of SaaS/ISV Alliances, and James Raquepau, our Director of Technology Alliances. Partners seeking info on Office 365 syndication and other SaaS/service delivery discussions need to meet Ben Brauer, Director of Product Marketing for Parallels Automation. Also in our booth will be Pablo Barcenas, Senior Systems Engineer, and Todd Carter, Director of Sales Engineering.
For partners' post-show follow-up, who should they contact and how (phone number or e-mail address)?
Contact John Zanni ([email protected]) or Bill Gauthier ([email protected]).
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