Bitrix Takes Their Intranet Portal to the Cloud

By Chelsi Nakano (@chelkano) Feb 22, 2010

Continuing on with their Software-as-a-Service adventure thanks to a partnership with Parallels, Bitrix (news, site) has announced that it’s working on a new initiative for delivering their Intranet Portal through a SaaS deployment model.

For Hosting/Service Providers

Basically, the new initiative allows hosting/service providers to install Bitrix Intranet Portal in a Virtual Private Server (VPS) or a cloud environment powered by Parallels, VMware or Amazon EC2. Customers are then granted the rights to use the solution for a given period of time without the hassle of on-premise deployment.

By utilizing the offering, Bitrix claims their partners can take advantage of:

competitive pricing
customization/rebranding options
a wide range of vendor support (sales, marketing, technical)
fair revenue sharing – paying only for actual users
no competition from the vendor
fair lead distribution
no setup fees

"Our new initiative gives partners a new method of business diversification and ARPU improvement while proving customers a chance to use a new business-oriented service directly from their hosting/service provider," said Dmitry Valyanov, President of Bitrix, Inc.

SaaS

Bitrix's focus on SaaS is inspired by several factors, including some interesting numbers from IDC. The research firm indicates that 41% of businesses have either already purchased, or are evaluating SaaS products. Meanwhile, the SaaS share in IT budgets is expected to double in 2009-2013. Gartner's in on SaaS as well, and predicts revenues will grow approximately four times faster than traditional software over the next four years—that's US$14 billion by 2013.

"The SaaS offering is a perfect market move that will be much appreciated especially by small companies with up to 50 users," said Daniel J. Gilbert, CEO of Aurora Information Technology, Inc., a Bitrix Gold Certified Partner that specializes in medical website design and Internet marketing.

Bitrix will have more information about the initiative at the Parallels Summit on February 23rd. Otherwise, you can get more information here.