June 4, 2009; 08:59 AM

FAREHAM, UK, and HERNDON, Va., June 4, 2009 – Cobweb Solutions, a provider of managed IT services, and virtualization and automation leader Parallels, today announced that CobWeb has implemented Parallels Automation to streamline internal administration, improve user experience and enable the provisioning of business applications and services, including Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Parallels Automation will allow Cobweb and its resellers to provide multiple-vendor solutions, flexible billing and administration across its different service offerings. The Parallels solution enables Cobweb’s channel partners with a fully branded, self-service portal they can deliver to their customers, combined with advanced billing functionality. The technology also accelerates Cobweb’s rapid progress into a white label reselling business model with VARs and System Integrator channel partners.

With over 5,000 customers and 175 reseller partners, Cobweb is committed to investing in infrastructure that provides the best possible experience for its users and maximizes productivity for its employees. Before implementing Parallels Automation, Cobweb was using a control panel that had been developed in-house for user administration. However, as part of its ongoing strategy to develop its range of offerings to meet growing customer demand, Cobweb wanted a platform that would support this growth whilst ensuring ease-of-use for end-users.

“With the phenomenal growth in popularity of hosted IT, we needed a platform that would allow us to offer a broader range of services with the scalability to meet increasing customer demand,” said Dan Germain, CTO at Cobweb Solutions. “Parallels Automation allows us to improve user experience whilst streamlining our internal processes and offering more flexible opportunities to resellers. This is a very important strategic move and puts Cobweb in a perfect position to maximize the interest in and growth of cloud computing. It also gives resellers an attractive alternative to Microsoft’s new Business Online Productivity Suite, giving them better overall control, not to mention advantageous profit margins.”

Cobweb uses Parallels Automation to power their white label reselling model to:

• Broaden offerings for customers and resellers - Parallels allows Cobweb to quickly add new products and services to its current range of hosted solutions. In addition to Microsoft Hosted Exchange and SharePoint, Cobweb now offers Microsoft Hosted CRM and a range of non Microsoft products from Online PC Backup and security to Hosted Desktop Virtualization which can all be white labelled.
• Streamline administration processes – The new platform gives resellers and their customers, self-service management of users, service billing and the ability to provision additional services.  This lets partners simplify processes across the business, from IT maintenance and updates to billing, customer service and account management.
• Improve the customer experience – Cobweb makes everything available to customers through one easy-to-use control screen with unified log-ins, easy account management and simple upgrades.

“For forward-thinking hosting/cloud services providers like Cobweb, white-label reselling of cloud services like Hosted Microsoft Exchange and Dynamics CRM, is a great way to expand access of business-class communications and collaboration to IT-hungry SMBs,” said Jack Zubarev, President, Service Provider Division at Parallels. “By implementing Parallels Automation, Cobweb and their reseller partners can focus on providing value-added services to its customers whilst keeping their administrative and operations costs low.”

About Parallels — Optimized Computing
Parallels is a worldwide leader in virtualization and automation software that optimizes computing for consumers, businesses, and service providers across all major hardware, operating systems, and virtualization platforms. Founded in 1999, Parallels is a fast-growing company with 700 employees in North America, Europe, and Asia. For more information, please visit www.parallels.com.

About Cobweb

Cobweb Solutions is one of Europe’s leading providers of hosted Microsoft Exchange services since 1996. Cobweb is ISO 27001, ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 accredited, and is a Microsoft Gold Partner with five core competencies.

The company offers managed services including Microsoft Hosted CRM, Microsoft Hosted Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint with Mobile Solutions, Web and SaaS Hosting, and white-label hosting for reseller and referral partners. For more information, please visit www.cobweb.com.