Parallels announced on Microsoft WPC2011 to be the first offering syndication for Office365 in their automation software. Today’s reality shows Parallels wished this was a bad dream that never happened. Most of their loyal customers feel betrayed because Microsoft Office365 head on head competition with its partner hosting channel. Integration of Office365 in Plesk was suddenly cancelled until further notice.
The figures: Parallels automation business on average is 15% Windows and 85% Linux (Plesk). Parallels global market share in Windows automation is considered small. They seem to be unable to grow their automation business even after buying most of the competition and hiring over 10 Microsoft directors. Less than 15 companies in Europe use Parallels automation product. Plesk for linux and desktop/server virtualization business seems to be doing a better but mainly in the US.
It is starting to look like that Microsoft acquired a large part of their business and that the “old boys club” of Parallels is witnessing how former Microsoft employees are wiping out their business piece by piece. Other recent acquisitions like Helm, Ensim and H-Sphere turned out to be another catastrophic decision.