Parallels Summit ‘10 Post-Event Summary
Earlier this week, the OpenSRS team (me included) descended upon Miami for the 5th annual Parallels Summit ‘10. We brought with us our own unique blend of excitable energy and enthusiasm.
We talked, we listened, we danced; but most of all, we connected. It was awesome.
There was a lot of great content at the conference and one of my favourites was the keynote delivered by Parallels’ CEO, Serguei Beloussov’s about his company’s vision for the Cloud. Nearly 1,100 service providers, telcos, VARs and ISVs listened intently as Serguei eloquently delivered a speech that described how hosting service companies’ services can be compared to those of a hotel operator.
Where hotels initially offered a ‘bed’ and a ‘roof’, they have innovated to become full-service companies that provided value-added services on top of their traditional offering. Higher margin services such as in-room dining, telephone, Internet, spa, and other entertainment, increase profits while allowing them to be competitive on their core “bed and a roof” pricing. It was a fitting analogy given the beautiful resort where the conference was held: the Fontainebleau Miami Beach Hotel & Resort.
Serguei delivered a convincing argument that small businesses are moving faster than ever to cloud services and hosting companies that offer software as a service (SaaS). A summary of Serguei’s keynote can be found on the Parallels blog and I highly recommend the read.
VeriSign Trusted Seal announcement
Also at the event, VeriSign announced a new service called the VeriSign Trusted Seal. The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) reported that in the 1st quarter of 2009, there were more new strains of malware than in the entire year for 2008. For businesses and brands on the web, this is a concerning number. The VeriSign Trusted Seal service, available to OpenSRS resellers later this year, performs daily scans of a website to ensure that any malware attacks are identified early. When malware is detected, VeriSign will automatically alert the website owner and provide assistance to eliminate the threat.
Other related news about Parallels Summit ‘10
- OpenSRS event photos
- Video and presentations from the Summit (Parallels)
- Using MacOS Server for Hosted Services (The WHIR)
- #ParallelsSummit (Twitter Search: #ParallelsSummit)
- Hosting and SaaS Blog (Parallels)
The OpenSRS team is getting geared up to exhibit at the Parallels Summit 2010 which takes place from Feb 22-24 in Miami, Florida. This is a premiere event in web hosting and an ideal conference to check out if you are a Parallels customer, interested in building better cloud services, or meeting with your industry peers.