I was at the Parallels Summit this week. SaaS and automation were key themes again at this years conference. This was another good conference by the Parallels group. Very informative with some fun mixed in.
SaaS and Automation
Software as a service was once again a dominant theme this year at the Parallels summit. Serguei Beloussov, Parallels CEO, gave a good presentation demonstrating how his company is positioning itself do be a solid player in the SaaS market.
Recent acquisitions of billing software company ModernBill and partnerships with VoIP providers is continually re-positioning the company from the makers of the popular Plesk control panel to a company delivering an end-to-end platform to automate deployment, billing and software solutions for small businesses. I always like Serguei’s energy and vision for the hosting market. Should he present his presentation online, I will be sure to get you a link.
For larger hosts, automation was a key focus. Being able to go from domain sales to provisioning and billing is a key advantage when trying to offer shared hosting services in volume. For smaller hosts or Plesk users, there are some interesting components in the pipeline. DKIM and DK support will be included soon. This is helpful with email delivery. And the application vault keeps growing. They are also integrating better quality testing for app vault packagers.
Cool Product: Applicure
I met with some people from Applicure. They make a web application firewall. This could be very useful for people with large shared hosting installations. I will have to follow-up on pricing but the software could be very effective in preventing web-app exploits, which rank number 1 among the SANs Top 20.
Networking: The social type
Networking is probably the most rewarding and useful part of attending these meetings. Few people in our market space attend these meetings. The only other management company represented that I ran into was Bobcares. So I spend a fair amount of time meeting with our partners and vendors. I spent some time with people from SoftLayer, R1 Soft, and Superb Internet.
Some Fun
I really enjoy the Parallels meetings because of the after-work networking events. This year it was in Washington D.C. again. The evening boat cruise along the Potomac was a nice break from the sessions. TheWhir.com threw up some pictures on Flickr if you want to take a look. On Tuesday night, there was a ballgame but I missed out on that one.
Next Year
If you missed it this year, consider going next year. These conferences can be informative, stimulating and fun. Much better than sitting behind a computer all day.