Cisco Invests In Parallels Cloud Platform Provider
January 18, 2013
Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Joe Panettieri.
Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) has invested in Parallels, which develops cloud and SaaS automation software for hosting providers. Financial terms were not disclosed. The Cisco-Parallels relationship will also include joint development, marketing and industry initiatives. But there’s a hidden wrinkle here. It involves distributors and other companies that host cloud services for VARs and MSPs.
If everything goes as planned, data center providers will leverage Cisco’s infrastrastructure and Parallels’ cloud service delivery products in tandem. And Parallels is calling on those data center providers to focus on SMB customers, which Executive Chairman Serguei Beloussov and CEO Birger Steen (pictured) consider to be an underserved market…
Parallels is privately held. As of 2011, I believe the company had pushed beyond $100 million in revenues. The longer-term goal — a rapid march toward $1 billion in revenues. Steen, a Microsoft veteran, is leading that march. Among his key focus areas: The Application Packaging Standard, which "makes it easy to package applications for seamless integration into cloud delivery systems," Parallels claims…
Read more from the source @ http://talkincloud.com/cloud-computing-funding-and-finance/cisco-invests-parallels-cloud-platform-provider