Friday's Last Word: Parallels CEO Birger Steen — Who exactly is he?

Parallels CEO Birger Steen has been leading the virtualization and automation software company's efforts since 2010. 

Before Parallels, Steen was with Microsoft for more than eight years, working in various roles. Prior to Microsoft, he led Scandinavia Online as CEO for a couple of years. He was also employed by Schibsted Media Group and McKinsey. Steen started his career with Norwegian Oil Trading. 

What are Steen's plans for Parallels?

"To serve service providers better than ever and anyone," he says. "We’ve been at this game since 2000, first as SWsoft and then as Parallels."

"In 2015 all the pieces will be coming together for hosters who are ready to up their game," Steen says. "Differentiated, value-added services will continue to drive growth and higher ARPUs, great container technology will become available for everyone and end customer demand will really take off in the SMB and developer markets — it’ll be a blast."

Who does Steen challenge to sit in the hot seat?

Taylor Rhodes, president and CEO at Rackspace, a San Antonio, Texas-based managed cloud hosting company.

What is "Friday's Last Word"?

Friday's Last Word welcomes cloud-centric CEOs who are willing to speak with Talkin' Cloud without someone peeking over a shoulder. Click on each photo to learn more about the CEO you're viewing — it's that simple.

Think you can handle sitting in the hot seat? Send an email to Talkin' Cloud Senior Editor CJ Arlotta at cj.arlotta [at] penton.com for further information. If he doesn't get back to you right away, bother him some more — and more.

Follow CJ Arlotta on Twitter @cjarlotta and Google+ for further updates on the story above — or if you just want to say hello.