Parallels Recruits Microsoft, Symantec Execs for Cloud Push

December 1, 2011

By samdizzy

Parallels has recruited executives from Microsoft, Itron and Symantec.cloud to accelerate the company’s cloud computing and desktop virtualization push. CTO Michael Toutonghi joins from Microsoft, CFO David Arkley joins from Itron, and VP/GM Jesper Frederiksen joins from Symantec.cloud. The new recruits reinforce Parallels’ effort to chart a multi-year course from $100 million to $1 billion in annual revenues, Talkin’ Cloud believes.

Parallels is no stranger to the Microsoft campus. Parallels in 2010 hired Microsoft veteran John Zanni as VP of alliances and former Microsoft Small Business VP Birger Steen as president; Steen later ascended to the Parallels’ CEO post.

So what exactly is Parallels up to with these latest hires? Plenty of answers will surface at the Parallels Summit in February 2012 (side note: see list of Top 100 Channel Partner Conferences for 2012). At the same conference in 2011, Steen and Executive Chairman Serguei Beloussov described Parallels’ SMB cloud push in this Talkin’ Cloud FastChat Video:

Fast forward to the present and it’s safe to say Parallels is still taking a long-term view of the market. Company insiders have previously told me that Parallels sees a long-term path to $1 billion in annual revenues, though I don’t know if that will eventually involve an IPO. Meanwhile, Steen told the Seattle Times that revenues at Parallels continue to grow 30 percent annually.

Parallels’ latest hires have impressive resumes. According to Parallels:

Toutonghi is inventor or co-inventor of 19 issued patents. He is one of only 22 Technical Fellows at Microsoft.
CFO Arkley brings more than 20 years of experience in financial services and strategy, most recently in a senior financial role with Itron, Inc., a provider of energy and water resource management solutions for nearly 8,000 utilities in 130 countries around the world. Here’s the really important part: Arkley previously helped to grow a business to $1 billion in revenues, and he has also led corporate M&A activities.
Frederiksen joined Parallels in November as VP and GM of EUNA. He was most recently Symantec’s vice president of EMEA for the Symantec.cloud business. He previously held positions at Google, Postini, Net IQ, VERITAS Software and KVS.

Generally speaking, a large number of hosting providers use Parallels’ automation software to more rapidly stand up SaaS applications and cloud services. The company’s desktop virtualization software is also very popular with Apple Mac users. But is there really a path forward to $1 billion in revenues? Talkin’ Cloud will be watching.

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