Parallels

Parallels Named Red Herring 100 Award Finalist

April 23, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Server virtualization firm Parallels has been named a finalist in the Red Herring 100 Awards‘ selection of the most innovative private technology companies based in North America.

In preparation for the formal announcement of its Top 100 Award, the Red Herring editorial board surveyed the entrepreneurial scene throughout the North American region and identified the top 200 out of more than 800 closely evaluated companies that are “leading the next wave of innovation”.

Evaluations were made on both quantitative and qualitative criteria such as financial performance, innovation, management, strategy, and ecosystem integration.

Joel Dreyfuss, Editor-in-Chief of Red Herring noted:

”We can see the exciting evolution of the technology sector reflected in the quality and variety of exceptional companies that we had to choose from in putting our list together. It was tough to choose just 200 finalists from such a large list of excellent contenders, and we are very happy with the quality of the companies we selected as finalists.”

According to Red Herring, Parallels is on the list due to its innovative and entrepreneurial achievements. The 100 winning companies will be announced at the Red Herring North America event, May 12-14, in San Jose.

[Source: The Hosting News]

Parallels Sells 1 Million Copies of Parallels Desktop, Says Apple Should Be Thankful

April 21, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Next Wednesday, Parallels will announce that it has sold the 1 millionth copy of Parallels Desktop for Mac. In one breath, they’re linking this number to the global Apple Mac market share, which has climbed from approximately 3% to nearly 7% in just under two years since Parallels Desktop for Mac was released.

Coincidence? We don’t think so. Parallels Desktop for Mac has basically eliminated the wall that previously existed between PCs and Macs. Now, everyone who wants a Mac can buy one without compromise and still run all their favorite Windows applications — something to keep in mind as Apple prepares to release quarterly results on Wednesday.

“Parallels Desktop not only broke down the barrier between the Mac and PC worlds, it also broke down the barrier that kept desktop virtualization from becoming a mainstream technology for consumers and professional users,” said Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels. “We will continue innovating to extend our position as the desktop virtualization leader and provide our users with the fastest, easiest and most seamless solution available.”

Marketing Director Ben Rudolph told us at VMworld Europe that they were nearing 900 000 sold copies just 2 months ago (video interview here, around the 1:15 mark), which means their sales should average about 50 000 units per month.

Impressive sales figures, indeed. But linking these results publicly with Apple’s growing market share (coincidentally, right before Apple intends to release its quarterly results) is nothing but a bold statement that can hardly be proved by factual evidence.

Maybe Parallels is actually fishing for an acquisition by Steve Jobs himself? 🙂

Cobweb Automates Hosted CRM Solutions With Parallels

April 16, 2008 by Robin Wauters 1 Comment

Parallels has been deployed by the European provider of hosting services Cobweb as the first service provider to use Parallels Automation with the hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.

Developed as a fully integrated customer relationship management (CRM) system, Cobweb has purchased the Parallels Automation solution to automate the delivery of several new hosting offerings and service bundles. Using a single login, service providers can deliver integrated offerings that include multiple services such as hosted Microsoft Exchange, hosted Windows SharePoint Services and hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels noted, ”We are pleased that Cobweb is using the full potential of our Parallels Automation solution to centrally manage a wide variety of hosting services. This deployment demonstrates how Parallels Open Platform is helping service providers deliver advanced business applications using the software-as-a-service (SaaS) delivery model.”

Dan Germain, Chief Technical Officer of Cobweb added, ”Using Parallels Automation, Cobweb can manage a wide variety of hosted offerings from a single, centralized system and can create unique service bundles using Microsoft Exchange, Windows SharePoint Services, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, ZANTAZ Email Archiving and shared web hosting. Parallels Automation connects the underlying technical services together in a manner that delivers real business benefits and solutions to our customers.”

Parallels Automation for Dynamics CRM includes pre-defined deployments, installation services and marketing support for service providers that want to deploy hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Pricing includes a one-time implementation fee and monthly licensing fees based on active users.

[Source: The Hosting News]

Parallels Server Beta 3 Hits The Streets

April 10, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Parallels has released Parallels Server beta 3. The update includes an integrated toolset that includes Parallels Tools, Parallels Image Tool and Parallels Transporter (a P2V and V2V migration tool) to the hypervisor solution for server virtualization.

Built on Parallels’ bare metal hypervisor architecture and award-winning hypervisor-based virtualization technology, Parallels Server for Mac enables organizations to:

Standardize server hardware platforms

Effectively consolidate server resources

Consolidate and support legacy OSes and applications

Streamline server and application deployment, maintenance and management

Simplify software testing and development

Optimize server and application availability

More info here, download here.

Follow-up On Our April Fool’s Joke On Sun Acquiring Parallels

April 7, 2008 by Robin Wauters 2 Comments

By now, you may have heard about the prank post we published on April Fool’s Day about Sun acquiring Parallels for $ 205 million. While the story was obviously fake, many people started speculating about its authenticity and – which was far more interesting – about the possibility of Parallels ever selling, and if so, at what price?

We were amused about the comments about it being ‘not so funny’, which was never the intention anyway. It wasn’t a joke, people, it was an April Fool. If it mislead you for even a second, that means it worked. It wasn’t supposed to make you laugh out loud, it was meant to get you thinking. We loved the response!

Honestly, did it?

Evidently, we didn’t want the prank to be a lame one, so we decided to run a story that would make people stop and think rather than being obviously fake, which is exactly what happened. As far as we’re concerned, it worked. We even got some feedback from both Sun and Parallels employees about the story, about how much they got a good laugh out of it. We loved reading the retaliatory post on the Parallels Consumer Tech blog, too.

Not exactly something to start a lawsuit over, or something that would actually affect the stock market, like some blogger ignorantly suggested (we hope he was joking too, because otherwise it would almost seem envious).

Anyway, official statements from parties mentionned in the article contained exactly the type of comment that official statements would have to feature: “Parallels is not for sale“, “Parallels is worth much more“, etc. (don’t you just love how these two kinda contradict each other?).

To be fair, we think Parallels is worth much more than $ 205 million as well, we weren’t trying to make a statement by picking that price, we just kinda went for it after thinking about it for a second or two. Same for the acquirer, we went for Sun after reading somewhere that Parallels would have been a great acquisition for Sun about 2 years ago, before it got so big.

Some of the points raised in the blog post by Ilya Baimetov, Directory of Technology at Parallels, are more interesting than the discussion about a good acquisition price, though. He says:

“SUN is a really strange acquirer. Our products are for Windows, Mac and Linux, and SUN is not that focused on the first two. Also, SUN is really not that much into automation, so again, not a good fit. If Microsoft or VMware or even HP or IBM was mentioned – it would make some sense, but not SUN.”

Excellent way to say you’re not for sale, guys! 😉

Now can we move on?

Sun Microsystems To Acquire Parallels For $ 205 Million (Updated)

April 1, 2008 by Robin Wauters 23 Comments

Looks like that Parallels IPO won’t be happening after all. Sun Microsystems has today announced it has reached an agreement to acquire Parallels (formerly SWsoft) and all of its assets for a whopping $ 205 million. The major acquisition had been rumoured to be imminent throughout the course of 2007, but never actually went through, which led mosts analysts to believe the Herndon, VA-based company was heading towards an IPO following in VMware’s footsteps rather than being picked up by one of the big boys.

Needless to say, the acquisition is a pretty bold one, which is bound to serve as wake-up call for the entire virtualization industry. Both companies had been on a buying spree the past few months: Sun picked up innotek / VirtualBox, while Parallels recently acknowledged its January acquisition of ModernGigabyte. The acquisition is expected to be finalized by June, around the time Sun also plans to ship xVM Server.

“With the acquisition of Parallels, Sun’s ready to become the only true leader in virtualization technology,” said Brian Sutphin, Executive Vice President Corporate Development & Alliances for Sun Microsystems. “With Parallels’ strong desktop position, we will be able to cater both Windows/Linux and Mac users with our state-of-the-art virtualization offering.”

Sergei Beloussov, Board Chairman and CEO of Parallels, added:”We’re extremely excited about the opportunities this merger will bring for our many customers and partners. We’re looking forward to effectively integrating our server product line with Sun’s sparc systems.”

Parallels, former SWsoft, has been making waves ever since it was founded in 1999. The virtualization technology company today counts more than 900 employees worldwide and has more than doubled revenues every year for the past eight years, while its products have been giving VMware a run for its money, especially in the small- and medium-business marketplace. The company was backed in 2005 by Intel Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Insight Venture Partners.

While VMware has been more than struggling to consolidate its splashing entry on the public market, Parallels has effectively become the second largest virtualization seller, with both containers and hypervisor plays in its portfolio. Sun’s bold move is logical in this regard, be it quite late, as this acquisition would have made more sense if it had happened around this time last year.

We’re still scrambling to get some official comments on the news from market insiders, we’ll update this post as they come in!

Update: obviously, this was an April Fool (we’re in based in Europe, so it’s April 1 earlier than over in the US).

On any other day, what would you think about this announcement? Would it have surprised you that much? Do you think it would be a fair valuation and a good synergy? Let us know in comments!

(also: check some classic April Fools’ Day jokes here)

Update 2: kudos to Parallels for their sense of humour, thanks to Brian, Dan and Tarry for linking and to the person who dugg the story 😉

Update 3: check out our follow-up post