Parallels Software is well-known for its virtualization software that allows Microsoft applications to run in a Macintosh environment.

These days its greater significance in the market is arguably for its cloud services delivery software that hosting providers are increasingly turning to as more small and medium sized businesses adopt cloud technologies.

For the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) this week, Parallels signed on as a platinum sponsor alongside HP and Fujitsu. It’s the first time a cloud software company has filled the top sponsorship spot at the WPC.

I have followed Parallels before. The company has some of the deepest knowledge in the market about the small business and hosting community. I was curious about the trends that Parallels executives were seeing at the WPC and how the tenor of the event differed from last year.

I spoke today with John Zanni, Parallels vice president of service provider marketing and alliances. He cited the following:

• Hosting services want to know how to integrate more services. They are increasingly sophisticated and are willing to invest and turn from on-premise to multi-tenant service offerings.
• Independent software vendors (ISVs) and value added resellers (VARs) see the added interest in cloud computing but do not necessarily know how to fulfill the demand.
• Developers are seeing the need to be more sophisticated in their approachas customers seek deeper integrations such as pre-provisioned virtual machines.
• There are more Mac and Apple devices in the enterprise and hosting services see an opportunity in offering virtual desktop software. In a study conducted by Information Technology Intelligence Consulting, the firm predicted that the percentage of large enterprises with more than 250 Macs and/or Apple devices in the organization will grow by 267 percent, increasing from 12 percent in 2010 to 32 percent in 2015.

Parallels itself made a number of announcements at the WPC:

• The company announced the release of Parallels Desktop 6 for Mac Enterprise Edition.
• Parallels will syndicate Microsoft Office 365 cloud productivity suite through Parallels Automation. The Automation software allows for hosting services to run applications in a cloud environment.
• Parallels now offers support for Microsoft’s System Center Hyper-V Cloud. This allows for hosting services to be full fledged cloud service providers and offer infrastructure as a service capabilities.

Services Angle

The small business sector is getting more sophisticated about cloud computing and the need for education is evident at WPC.  ISV mangers are taking a look at their applications to determine how they fit with hosting services that are investing in infrastructure to become full-fledged services providers. Developers are seeing new demands by small businesses to integrate applications. This may mean moving to a cloud-based CRM suite that fits with its ERP technology.