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US-based Parallels banks on Indian SMEs

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CIOL Bureau
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MUMBAI, INDIA: US-based Parallels, a hosting and cloud services enablement firm, is banking high on SMEs (small and medium enterprises) to drive its revenue growth in India.

The company has already tied up with 30 service providers since it started its operations in India two years back, to tap the SME market here. Although its revenues from the country is not big enough, it claims it is witnessing a three-digit percentage growth year on year.

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“We are in talks with large service providers and telecom operators to enable hosted and cloud services in India. It could accelerate our revenues and growth here,” John Zanni, Parallels' vice president — Service Provider Marketing & Alliances told CIOL, on the sidelines of the WorldHostingDays (WHD) event here.

“Demand for hosting services is growing in India, as businesses are looking to use billing, messaging, mobility, e-commerce and other solutions like Microsoft Exchange and Google Apps,” Zanni said.

Parallels has already partnered with Znet, Directi, CrtlS and Net4India to provide hosting and cloud services. In addition, the it has announced a partnership with Kryptos for the distribution of a range software solutions, including Parallels' Plesk Panel, Business Automation Standard and Virtuozzo Containers.

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According to Zanni, India will become one of the top five markets in next five years and will be a key to Parallels' growth.

Zanni, however, pointed that there are challenges in Indian SME market, such as educating them about the importance of having a website, hosting services and Internet payment gateways.

“Also, Indian SME market is very price-sensitive. So we need to work with local partners to reach out to the potential customers and understand their needs,” Zanni said. The company is also looking at pay-per-use model to serve the SME market.

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The Asia Pacific cloud market has reached $8.8 billion and is expected to grow at 27 per cent CAGR to touch $18 billion by 2014, according to Parallels SME Cloud Insights, the company's research arm.

The Indian SME cloud services market, including the hosted infrastructure and web presence services was estimated around $123 million, in which the hosted infrastructure contributed around $97 million, followed by web presence with $26 million.

In the Asia Pacific region, Japan, Australia and Korea are the biggest growth market for Parallels. Globally, the company has over 5000 service provider partners that include telecom operators, hosting and cloud services providers, data center and Internet service providers.