Automation and virtualization vendor Parallels has reportedly announced increased demand for its Parallels Automation offering among its hosting provider partners.

The service delivers applications like Microsoft (News - Alert) Hosted Exchange in a Software-as-a-service, or “SaaS” model. 

 

Using a third party – such as a host or telco provider – to manage corporate e-mail and unified communications can be an alternative for companies lacking space or resources to administer what SMBs consider their most important business application. In the hosted exchange model, the service provider manages all the technology and support for the SMB.

 

"Hosts, telecommunication providers, and MSPs" are leading the industry trend, Parallels officials said, and "providing hosted e-mail services to SMBs in a cloud model, with capabilities that were historically only available to large enterprises."

 

The economy is probably increasing the attractiveness of Microsoft Hosted Exchange by SMBs as a way to lower their IT costs and overhead. In fact, according to a Gartner (News - Alert) report in 2008, Microsoft Hosted Exchange will grow to 35 million users by 2012, "representing an 88-percent compound annual growth rate."

 

Microsoft Hosted Exchange (News - Alert) is billed as offering SMBs an alternative to managing an in-house e-mail server. Parallels Automation is used by such cloud services providers as Apptix (News - Alert) in the US, Cobweb in Europe, and GMO Hosting and Security in Asia, as well as telcos such as Portugal Telecom and Sunrise.

 

Last April, TMCnet Parallels announced that Cobweb, a vendor of hosting services in Europe, was the first service provider to use Parallels Automation with hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0. Cobweb purchased the Parallels Automation product to automate the delivery of several new hosting offerings and service bundles.

“E-mail continues to be the most popular form of business communication today,” said Philbert Shih, research analyst at Tier1 Research, said in a statement. “But in order to save on IT spending, SMBs and enterprises are increasingly making the move from on-premise e-mail deployments to a hosted model.”

Chris Damvakaris, vice president of sales and business development for Apptix, reported "tremendous interest from our channel partners for the expanded suite of hosted communication services." 

“Our SMB customers need to avoid upfront costs associated with purchasing the hardware and software, but need to access the latest applications and services, such as business-class e-mail,” Claudio Granella, product manager at Sunrise, said in a statement.