Parallels has entertained, informed, educated and exhorted a vast array of web hosting compay executives and staffers over the past two days during the third annual Parallels Summit. This year's event was held at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. and featured dozens of interesting and informative information sessions focused on hosting, virtualization and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) for both service providers and third party application vendors.

Parallels (formerly SWsoft) practically invented VPS hosting and virtualized servers with its suite of products including Virtuozzo and Parallels Containers. The company has grown by leaps and bounds recently, but has managed to deliver ever more effective and feature filled software at the same time.

According to the Chairman and CEO of Parallels, Mr. Serguei Beloussov, there were over 500 attendees present representing 20 countries around the globe. The Parallels Summit was well organized and the venue was elegant, comfortable and convenient to restaurants and entertainment - not to mention a close proximity to the heart of the nation's Capital with many interesting and historical sites and monuments. This fact was brought home clearly during a great networking event aboard The Odyssey Boat Cruise sponsored by Microsoft. The cruise ship accommodated practically all the attendees, and between the music, drinks and beautiful scenic views of the city from the Potomac - afforded ample time to mingle and discuss the business of hosting with other industry professionals.

In attendance at the event were an extended complement of the staff at the virtualization company always available to answer questions or to direct visitors to resources. As well, seen at the event were a full crew of folks from VPS hosting company, HostMySite.com, several employees of Lunarpages, noted web hosting and Internet services attorney, David Snead, and hundreds of other web hosting company CEOs and vendors.

The two day event offered three tracks of educational sessions and several keynote addresses. The tracks delivered were: a Business Track, a Technical Track, and an Industry Track. Each track was supported by forty five minute sessions delivered by authorities in their subject matter. A small sampling of the sessions and topics covered include:

ISVs and Hosters - Working Together presented by Soeren von Varchmin

SaaS Market Opportunities presented by Jerry Champlin

Hosting Trends presented by Dan Golding

Mobile Phone Hosting presented by John Davies

The keynote speakers were very impressive. Parallels CEO Serguei Beloussov delivered keen insights during his keynote including a few important key points. He outlined one key trend as the fact that growth in the web hosting industry is slowing. A second trend identified was the fact that managed hosting and SaaS are growing market segments. Additionally, Mr. Beloussov noticed that Google, Microsoft and Amazon have entered hosting. He also noted his take on critical services offerings for web hosting providers:

business class email
office applications
channel offerings
business line applications
online marketing integration

Mr. Beloussov concluded his comments by outlining Parallel's vision of the future for hosting services companies:

1. partner to stay competitive

2. automate fully or face extinction

3. virtualize hosting or lose profitability

4. standardize or stop growing

The Parallels Summit for 2008 was a well run and worthwhile educational experience for any web hosting company. One further note, it is possible that the venue might change for next year when the company is expecting to have around 1,000 attendees. One possible location? Las Vegas. That would couple a great hosting event with a truly entertaining city. Make plans to attend the Parallels Summit for 2009 if you can.

Copyright © by Dedicated Servers, Reseller Web Hosting News All Right Reserved.

Published on: 2008-05-20 (899 reads)