Apptix, the premier provider of Microsoft hosted business communication, collaboration, and IT solutions announced the addition of Sprint Global Wholesale & Emerging Solutions to its blue chip channel program. Parallels Automation, the leading hosting and cloud services enablement platform, is powering Sprint's cloud services aggregation and delivery platform. This alliance will expand Sprint's portfolio of cloud telecommunications and IT services, allowing Sprint to more effectively serve wholesale customers catering to small & medium-sized businesses, and key industries such as healthcare, government, and education.

Apptix hosted business solutions, provided through Sprint, enhance employee productivity, keep users connected from virtually any location, and reduce IT service costs. Optional archiving, encryption, and compliance features give businesses the tools they need to help you meet stringent regulatory requirements such as HIPAA, PCI, FRCP, and SOX.

The new offerings, delivered via the Parallels Automation platform, include: 

• Hosted Microsoft Exchange - corporate-class email and shared calendaring, task, and contact capabilities
• Mobile Email Synchronization - seamless integration with a variety of mobile devices including iPad®, iPhone®, Windows Mobile®, Android® and BlackBerry®
• Mailbox Continuity - rapid failover of email service to ensure little-to-no lost data in the event of an outage
• Hosted Microsoft SharePoint® - enterprise-class, customizable collaboration and content management platform
• Desktop Backup -backup solution to protect important data
• Archiving & Compliance - email archiving to assist with your financial and legal compliance requirements
• Email Encryption - Policy Based Encryption for more secure communications

The expansion of its solutions portfolio is just the latest enhancement of the Sprint Wholesale Cloud Services program, an innovative approach to guide Sprint resellers' entry and success in the rapidly growing cloud services market. Sprint empowers its partners to enter the market faster by eliminating multiple party contracts and preselecting and aggregating in-demand application and service offerings.

"Apptix is providing Sprint best-in-class flexible solutions designed to meet the unique needs of businesses of any size," said David Ehrhardt, president and CEO of Apptix. "We believe Sprint now has a competitive advantage within the growing Cloud market space."

"Resellers need only to connect to a single cloud services platform hosted within Sprint's data center network and built upon Parallels Automation software," said John Zanni, Vice President of Service Provider Marketing and Alliances at Parallels. "Sprint's cloud solutions are integrated and delivered under the reseller's brand across this platform, with a single sign-on and a single bill for all services. As a result of using Parallels Automation, Sprint is dramatically minimizing the initial capital expenditure required and making it much easier to enter the cloud services marketplace."

"Sprint Global Wholesale & Emerging Solutions makes it easy for our wholesale customers to deliver a robust Cloud solution more quickly and cost effectively than if they were to create it themselves," said Ben Vos, vice president, Wholesale Business Operations, Sprint. "By offering advanced cloud services, such as those provided by Apptix, across a single interface, we complement the other wireless and wireline services in our wholesale portfolio, and help grow and support our customers' SMB solutions revenue."

Welcome to the cloud - the future is now

The market for cloud services is growing rapidly. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) revenue for North America alone is projected to reach more than $23 billion by 2017, according to industry analyst firm Frost & Sullivan. Fueling much of this growth is small and mid-size businesses turning to cloud-based applications and services to lower costs and enhance business performance.

"As cloud usage escalates in the next 5 years, the market will belong to providers that can assure users of secure, high-performance, easy-to-use access to applications at a reasonable cost," said Lynda Stadtmueller, Cloud Program director for Frost & Sullivan.

Sprint's selection of aggregated cloud applications and expansion of its SaaS portfolio provide a wide range of business software functionality that can be accessed nearly any time, from virtually any location, via a web-based portal. Not only is that more convenient for end-users, but it also eliminates the expense and hassle of dealing with multiple software vendors. Businesses of all sizes can confidently embrace a variety of hosted services to improve productivity and cost structures.