Parallels has announced the availability of Parallels DaaS [Desktop-as-a-Service], a new DaaS cloud computing solution targeted at the MSP market and their SMB customers.
Parallels is one of the companies in the Alludo portfolio, with Alludo formerly being known as Corel from their inception in 1985 until their rebranding in 2022. Parallels has also been around for a long time, but their focus for years was on their Remote Application Server [RAS], rather than DaaS, which is growing in the market, with a recent survey by leading IT professionals, conducted by Parallels, finding that 78% plan to adopt a DaaS solution by 2025.
“Our underlying goal has always been streaming applications,” said Christa Quarles. CEO of Alludo. “That wasn’t going to change. What has changed is how we are doing it. With RAS, you did It from your own server infrastructure. Now with DaaS, you can get into a hyperscaler. RAS is easy and fine for customers who have done this on their servers, and at Alludo we have hundreds of contracts for these. It would be nice to give them the opportunity for a separate setup. DaaS is easier because you don’t have to have your own infrastructure set up.” The solution requires neither specialized IT nor VDI knowledge. Onboarding can be done in under 20 minutes through a model admin portal, and new users can be set up with just a few clicks.
With the launch of Parallels DaaS, Parallels can meet customers’ and partners’ diverse organizational needs, either by delivering applications and desktops from the cloud with Parallels DaaS, or on-prem through a hybrid approach with Parallels RAS, or directly on the device with Parallels Desktop.
Quarles said that Parallels provides new requirements and opportunities for Alludo.
“The overall end-user computing market has different components, and we don’t compete with all of it,” she stated. “But even if you are midmarket, you are getting large price increases from the incumbents.” Parallels DaaS is available at a competitive TCO with a predictable subscription-based model
This combination of simplicity and price gives Parallels more appeal to a broader range of customers.
“It’s easier to move to RAS than to the next version of Citrix,” Quarles indicated. “Citrix is still likely one of our main competitors, but our new cloud offering with Parallels DaaS will definitely put us in more conversations within the channel.”
VMware‘s decision to dump the customers and partners that Broadcom would consider to be small fry also expands the market for Parallels.
“Broadcom doesn’t want the 1000 seat offering because it’s too small for their strategy,” Quarles said. “We will take that, and happily. We can even absorb customers in the 5000 seat range.
“We also view it as highly secure,” she added. “That’s an important part of the equation these days – simple, secure and fairly priced – and that’s what we want the channel to understand.”