Bob’s interweb party house

If you’re in the industry, and you’ve been paying attention recently, you probably know that Parallels software recently picked up both Plesk (SWSoft) and Hsphere (Positive Software). For some, this may plant seeds of fear, especialy those who have been around long enough to remember when Sun Microsystems came in and gobbled up Cobalt,released the RaQ550, which was a big change to the RaQ4, and then shut down the operation. Where a lot of us in the industry were comfortable with the appliance hosting model for shared hosting, we were then forced to scramble to find software solutions. Some settled with the Japanese open-source releases of the RaQ550 software, while others such as myself decided to settle on Plesk. While Hsphere seemed to offer more granular control to the end user, Plesk seemed more simplistic in its interface and more scalable. Also, Hsphere includes integrated billing, and Plesk does not, but rather offers an API to process orders through your own billing system.

Parallels has announced their intent with these purchases.

Product Comparisons

H-Sphere delivers a complete hosting solution for small and medium sized hosting providers who want to offer shared hosting and virtual private servers with integrated billing.

* Parallels System Automation - Telecom providers, ISPs, and larger hosting providers who manage a large number of accounts, a large number of service plans, or require customized deployment architectures should use Parallels System Automation.
* Parallels Business Automation and Plesk - H-Sphere contains features of both Parallels Business Automation (ordering, billing, service plan management) and Plesk (control panels, provisioning). H-Sphere provides a single easy-to-understand platform, while Parallels Business Automation and Plesk provide specialized software systems with larger development teams and robust product roadmaps. We recommend Plesk as the platform for future business growth.

H-Sphere will continue to be developed and supported by Parallels. Future product plans will be largely customer driven and will focus on integration with other Parallels hosting products.

I’ve been waiting for this announcement, to see if there would be a point of convergence between the products. It seems like Parallels System Automation is the new name for SWSoft’s PEM product.