Parallels Holdings announces the sale of its Odin Service Automation Platform to Ingram Micro

Parallels Holdings today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its Odin Service Automation platform, along with the associated cloud management technologies, intellectual property and the Odin brand to Ingram Micro (www.ingrammicro.com) for an undisclosed sum. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2015.

Going forward, Parallels cross-platform solutions business unit will continue to operate as a standalone company under the Parallels brand (www.parallels.com). The Plesk business unit, providing Web management solutions to more than 10 million small businesses and hosters worldwide, will operate as a standalone company under the Plesk brand (www.plesk.com). The Virtuozzo business unit, which develops the market leading container virtualization technology, will operate as a standalone company under the Virtuozzo brand (www.virtuozzo.com). All three business units will continue to be owned and controlled by Parallels Holdings.

"We are thrilled that our long-term collaboration with Ingram Micro has reached this new milestone, as it will greatly benefit our Odin Service Automation customers, partners and staff," said Birger Steen, chief executive officer, Parallels Holdings. "At the same time, this provides us with the opportunity to sharpen our focus as a company and continue to deliver market leading products under the Parallels, Plesk and Virtuozzo brands."

The Plesk business will be led by Nils Hueneke, a long-time leader within Parallels and Odin and a veteran in the hosting and cloud business.

"I am excited by the opportunity to take Plesk to the next level," said Hueneke, chief executive officer, Plesk. "We will be laser-focused on our core audience of Web designers, developers and hosters to accelerate the evolution of Plesk as the best control panel and Web management platform."

Virtuozzo will be led by Rob Lovell who re-joined Parallels in October and most recently held leadership positions at Colt following Colt's acquisition of ThinkGrid where he was founder and chief executive officer.

"Virtuozzo has been at the forefront of containers, cloud, PaaS and IaaS long before those words entered the mainstream," said Lovell, chief executive officer, Virtuozzo. "With newly gained focus, our customers and partners will see a faster evolution of our roadmap focused on helping them deliver on a wider range of services to their clients using the best in container, virtualisation and storage technologies from Virtuozzo."

"We believe this is a great transaction for our respective businesses, associates, partners and customers, and Ingram Micro is excited to deepen support for Parallels Plesk and Virtuozzo product lines as we acquire and increase investment in the Odin Automation platform," said Ingram Micro executive vice president, Nimesh Dave. "Together, Ingram Micro and Odin will offer the ideal combination of expertise, knowledge and commercial relationships for all our customers and partners. Ingram Micro is committed to supporting all existing customers on the Odin platform, while continuing to invest to enhance and improve the technology for the benefit of all."