(The Hosting News) – Parallels has announced the appointment of Birger Steen as President of the company. Mr. Steen comes to Parallels from Microsoft, where he was the Vice President of Small and Medium Business and Distribution and will join the company in September 2010.

“Birger Steen is a great addition to the Parallels team and we are excited to have him join the organization in this capacity” said Serguei Beloussov, Chairman and CEO of Parallels. “Birger’s experience is a great match for our Cloud services enablement and desktop software businesses, especially given his current focus on small business customers and the Microsoft partner community. In addition, his tenure in senior positions at several leading companies in Russia, Norway, and the US gives him a breadth of knowledge and experience that will help us as we grow.”

Prior to his current role at Microsoft, Mr. Steen held several senior positions at the company since joining in 2002. He started his Microsoft career at as General Manager in Norway and then moved on to serve as General Manager and Vice President of Microsoft Russia. During his tenure there, Microsoft’s revenues from Russia grew tenfold. Before Microsoft Mr. Steen was CEO of Scandinavia Online AB which was listed on the Stockholm and Oslo Stock Exchanges in 2000 under his leadership.

In his new role he will report to Mr. Beloussov and will be responsible for sales, marketing, product management, and support, as well as assisting Mr. Beloussov in transforming the company for the next stage of growth.”

“I’m very excited to be joining Parallels” said Birger Steen. “The company is at the very forefront of the industry. Parallels enables Service Providers to launch and profitably deliver Cloud services for the small business segment. Small businesses all over the world are quickly moving their IT to the Cloud, and Parallels has a tremendous opportunity to help both existing Service Providers, new entrants to the IT services arena and the 150 million small businesses they collectively serve to take advantage of the Cloud model.”

Birger holds a Master of Science in Computer Science and Industrial Engineering from the Norwegian Institute of Technology in Trondheim and earned his MBA from INSEAD in France.

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