The producer of virtualization and automation software Parallels, announced this week that it integrated Open-Xchange open source e-mail and collaboration software with its Operations Automation SaaS Module. According to the software producer, now its partners can deliver a cost-effective alternative to commercial e-mail and collaboration products at very competitive price.

Parallels packaged the Open-Xchange software in the Application Packaging Standard (APS) format. The producers of Virtuozzo Containers Os virtualization technology and Plesk hosting automation system also announced that the new solution is available to end-users via its partners - web hosting companies and Internet service providers.

The CEO of Parallels Serguei Beloussov told IT media that leveraging the Parallels Operations Automation SaaS Module enables APS compatible application companies like Open-Xchange to help service providers to grow profitability. "We are happy to see application vendors like Open-Xchange embrace the Application Packaging Standard (APS) format as they are a highlight to the growing list of over 200 applications that can seamlessly integrate their applications into Parallels Automation products", said Mr. Belousov.

Rafael Laguna the CEO of Open-Xchange said that the company's software is the only email and groupware solution, specifically designed for web hosting and SaaS providers.

Due to the open source nature, Open-Xchange can be easily integrated into different web hosting infrastructures. As a part of Parallels Automation SaaS Module web hosts and service providers can implement Open-Xchange without changing their authentication, user setup, system administration, and etc.

"VMware is now considered to be the tenth largest software company", wrote Tom Valovic for Virtualization Review in an article titled "VMware's Virtualization Forum 2008".

When we talk about VMware I would like to target your attention to "VMware's Top 10 Predictions for Virtualization in 2009". Read the predictions Dr. Stephen Herrod made. He is responsible for VMware's new technologies and technology collaborations with customers, partners and standards groups.

"The landscape of the cmarket in 2009 will be substantially different and more competitive as the industry focus shifts to management and automation. A number of virtualization management startup companies, many of whom are VMware partners, are looking to capitalize on this trend, each bringing its own unique value proposition to the table and hoping to advance the state of the art", says Tom Valovic in an article about virtualization published in the website Virtualization Review.

Mr. Valovic point readers attention to a company called Netuitive. He explains that Netuitive has been in the BSM and performance management business for almost 6 years and has over 200 enterprise class customers such as Cigna, Verizon, NTT, the US Army and MetLife.

The author says that the company's main advantage is a patented algorithm that its performance management software uses to provide continuously adaptive, self-learning capability.

Tom Valovic explains how Netuitive entered the virtualization market. The company released virtualization product "Netuitive SI" for VMware in March 2007. It helps VPS consumers to extract information about the behavior of each virtual machine (VM) and host running in a VMware ESX environment. Read the story in Virtualization Review.