Parallels helps CSPs help SMBs

It is widely accepted wisdom that cloud services and the SMB community are, or at least should be, a very good complement for each other. Yet there still seems to be work that needs doing from the cloud services side of the fence to provide that package of tools, applications and services that will make them rush in their thousands to adopt cloud and exploit it mercilessly.

That certainly seems to be the view of Birger Steen, chief executive officer, Parallels. The company produces a suite of cloud services management tools and services that target the Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) that in turn seek to target the service needs of the SMB community, and already puts in a significant amount of effort into working with its CSP channel partners

“Our goal is to ensure customers and partners have everything they need to be successful in the cloud services space,” Steen said.  “There is still a lot of confusion on how to best offer SMBs cloud services.”

His aim continues to be to find the best ways of reducing that confusion by improving and extending the resources and services available to the company’s partners

The latest batch of service enhancements Parallels has recently introduced are aimed at helping those CSPs build their own service ecosystems that map onto their own market sectors. They include Parallels PartnerNet, which includes new capabilities for managing company profiles and certification of applications delivered via the Applications Packaging Standard (APS); new support services;  cloud acceleration services; and a range of professional consultancy services.

The Parallels PartnerNet is a private portal for service provider partners. Populated with up-to-date and relevant news, exclusive content, product resources, marketing tools, developer downloads and ISV-focused documentation, Parallels PartnerNet is the primary resource for maximising growth and minimising partner challenges in cloud services enablement. 

It is a comprehensive repository of product resources, best practices whitepapers and research showing SMB cloud buying trends. It provides the ability to search for APS-certified cloud ISVs by different categories.

This has been enhanced with a new feature set that lets service providers and ISVs not only manage a company’s profile, but also create and manage pages for APS certified applications and solutions. These customisable pages will help ISVs differentiate themselves by including assets such data sheets, videos and a link to APSstandard.org.

The new feature set is also designed to help Parallels service provider partners search through APS-certified applications so they can quickly and easily discover new third-party services to expand their offerings.  

The move to cloud services introduces new complexities for service providers and ISVs alike as they work together to support customers, manage incidents across multiple partners and maintain service performance levels. This has prompted the introduction of new support services that are aimed at by-passing the need to handle these complexities, such as multi-party service management, byincreased staffing, ad-hoc collaboration and post-incident reporting.

First out of the blocks here is a complete software-as-a-service (SaaS), multi-party incident management solution, Parallels Support Exchange,that enabled by Cisco ServiceGrid.  Parallels Support Exchange is focused on reducing the cost and complexity associated with multi-party service management that spans service providers’ customer and partner ecosystems.

“Cisco ServiceGrid transforms multi-party support with a connect once – connect all architectural approach unique in the industry,” said Jim McDonnell, general manager, Cisco Services Integration Technology Group. “In addition to reducing cost and complexity, ServiceGrid drives support resolution times down by 25 percent or more compared with traditional support.”

For service providers who want to expand their business, the new Cloud Acceleration Services provides cloud market intelligence, product management and go-to-market expertise to monetise the SMB market opportunity through workshops, assessments and tools -- based on the company’s experience working with more than 9,000 service providers.

Parallels Professional Services helps partners plan, deploy, integrate and optimise Parallels solutions by exploiting the company’s broad experience of deploying customised solutions. The aim is to get partners’ go-to-market planning, development and implementation to be much faster by using proven, repeatable methodologies and best practices.