Zentyal, developer of easy IT solutions for small business, announced today the launch of the beta version of Zentyal Cloud, the small business cloud. With Zentyal Cloud the company adds cloud services to its server solution and remote monitoring and management platform, completing its all-in-one IT infrastructure offering.
Zentyal Cloud helps small and medium businesses (SMBs) to take their IT infrastructure easily to the cloud. It is the only cloud-service in the market that allows to take the management of users, permissions, files and email to the cloud, while being fully synchronized with the local IT infrastructure. Therefore, latest versions of the company files will always be available, data loss and system downtime cease to be problems and above all, it makes possible to take advantage of the cloud without loosing control over the systems.
In times when multiple cloud solutions try to gain a foothold in the market, Zentyal Cloud stands out for three main reasons: the integration with local IT infrastructure offers more reliable and robust cloud services; as the end customer can choose the location of their data, security and privacy of data is guaranteed according to customer requirements and, lastly, the end customer is in control of the cloud services used by his/her employees.
According to Gartner, 2012, the public cloud services market will grow 18.5 percent in 2013 worldwide. North America and Western Europe are the regions where most of the new spending will take place (83%) from 2013 to 2016 and highest growth rates come from the emerging regions of Asia/Pacific, China and Latin America, lead by Argentina, Mexico and Brazil. According to Edge Strategies, 2012, the global cloud adoption in the SMB market is approximately 30 percent.
CTTA (Cloud & Technology Transformation Alliance), 2013, indicates that the most common cloud objections in SMBs are related to security (51%), loss of administrative control (33%), performance and reliability (16%) and data integrity (16%). These are precisely the concerns to which Zentyal Cloud offers a solution.
“This is the only cloud service that takes into account the local IT infrastructure of the customers and brings together the best of both cloud and local infrastructure” said Ignacio Correas, CEO and Founder of Zentyal. “Thanks to this, we are bridging the gap between both worlds and overcoming all the major concerns of end customers regarding the cloud, specifically privacy, security, reliability and control.”
Beta phase and availability of Zentyal Cloud
In its beta phase Zentyal Cloud offers the opportunity to manage users and groups, store and share files and to use email together with calendar and contacts. It is very easy to use Zentyal Cloud: end users have both web interface and desktop client, both easy-to-use and available for Windows, Mac and Ubuntu.
Zentyal Cloud is a product designed to match Zentyal’s all-in-one offering and it is suitable for any business and organization from 5 to 500 users. Zentyal Cloud can be easily added to the commercial Zentyal Server Editions: Small Business Edition or Enterprise Edition.
There are two Zentyal Cloud plans. The Small Business Cloud Plan is for up to 25 users and it includes 10 Gb per user for both files and email and the Enterprise Cloud Plan, with no user limit, extends the storage space to 25 Gb for files and 25 Gb for email per user. In the Small Business Plan the data is kept in the public cloud, but in the Enterprise Plan the customer can choose the location of the data. The price of the Small Business Plan is 8€ per user per month and the Enterprise Plan is 15€ per user per month.
All Zentyal server users who have registered their servers can try Zentyal Cloud with the Free Plan, that offers 2 Gb per business, for up to 5 users.
The channel is the largest beneficiary
While the ultimate goal of Zentyal Cloud is to make the life of SMBs easier by helping them in the migration to the cloud, the IT channel is the largest beneficiary of this new service, that will be sold exclusively through partners, that they can now add to their portfolio or Zentyal products.
Thanks to Zentyal Cloud, the Authorized Zentyal Partners – local IT support and service providers that maintain and manage the IT infrastructure of other companies – can now offer complete IT infrastructure, from the server to the cloud, to their SMB customers. This is something that increases automatically the value of their offering and it is only the beginning.
In addition, Zentyal Cloud fully integrates in the remote monitoring and management platform Zentyal Remote. Like this, the partners that offer managed services to their customers can also control Zentyal Cloud from Zentyal Remote. This allows the partner to manage systems in a proactive way, avoiding system crashes and downtime, that translates to a higher value offering.
Zentyal Cloud is specially interesting for the Professional and Premier Partners because they are given the option to host the customer data either on private cloud of the customer, or in their own data centers. Moreover, they have the option of making visual changes in the Zentyal Cloud interface. This means, in terms of functionality, that they can customize Zentyal Cloud for their customers and, in business terms, that they can add another layer of value to their offering.
How to get a beta account
Exclusively for the press: Request an account from Marta Cambronero, mcambronero@zentyal.com
In the beta phase of Zentyal Cloud there is a limited number of accounts available and these are given out gradually. Any registered user of Zentyal server can request the Free Plan at: cloud.zentyal.com/beta
Additional information
Public presentation of Zentyal Cloud in English:
http://www.anymeeting.com/AccountManager/RegEv.aspx?PIID=E954D888854D31
Zentyal Cloud images:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zentyal/sets/72157633303664522/
Zentyal graphic resources:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zentyal/sets/72157633318675488/
Technical features:
http://www.zentyal.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Zentyal_Cloud_Technical_Features.pdf
Zentyal products datasheet:
http://www.zentyal.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Zentyal_Products_Datasheet_en.pdf
About Zentyal
Zentyal designs and develops IT solutions for small and medium businesses since 2004. The company provides SMBs and their local IT providers all-in-one IT solutions that are easy to use, from the server to the cloud. Zentyal-based solutions allow to reduce and rationalize IT investments, improve the security and minimize system downtime.
Zentyal-based solutions are widely used by small and medium businesses independently of their activity or location, as well as by public administration or the education sector. The partnership agreements signed with IT support and service providers in more than 20 countries guarantee the distribution of Zentyal-based solutions to customers worldwide.