Parallels, a leading hosting and cloud services enablement provider, is proud to announce that the company has been named as one of the Top 20 Coolest Cloud Vendors of 2014 as part of the Cloud 100 by CRN, for the second year in a row. This annual list recognizes the most innovative cloud vendors and solutions tailored to address the cloud computing industry’s unique needs.

“Parallels offers a breakthrough platform for hosters,” industry site CRN said, citing Parallels tremendous growth of its partner channel year-over-year and more than a 400% increase in partners who use the Parallels PartnerNet portal.

“We are honored to be recognized for the second time in a row for our work to ensure partners have everything they need to be successful in the cloud services space,” said John Zanni, chief marketing officer, Service Provider, Parallels. “This recognition from CRN highlights our commitment to deliver the software and expertise for our partners to help them solve their SMB customers’ unique business challenges.”

Each year, CRN honors the 100 Coolest Cloud Computing Vendors in an effort to help solution providers navigate the growing cloud marketplace and identify the best solutions to support the IT channel. Winners are named across five major cloud categories including platforms and tools, infrastructure, storage, security and software, based on data and information gathered from both solution provider nominations and the CRN editorial team.

Anyone interested in seeing firsthand what makes Parallels one of the coolest cloud platform vendors can register to attend Parallels Summit 2014, the global annual gathering of the cloud industry, held February 24-26, 2014 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Summit attendees include the over 1,200 of the most prominent leaders in the hosting industry, including executives from Platinum and Gold event sponsors Microsoft and Cisco, among others. A detailed agenda of planned sessions and activities is available at http://www.parallels.com/summit/2014/.