Kerio Technologies, which provides unified communications, collaboration and security solutions for small to medium-sized businesses and organizations worldwide, has launched a SaaS (News - Alert) initiative to expand cloud-hosting options for its channel partners.

Officials with Kerio said that the company is launching its SaaS program for Kerio Connect, its messaging, calendar and contacts server, and Kerio Workspace, its online file sharing and social collaboration tool.

Company officials said that with Kerio SaaS, channel partners provide Kerio software to their clients as an on-demand service, while generating a monthly recurring revenue stream with a simple pricing model.

"We are quite pleased with how simple it has been to use the Kerio SaaS model," said Guy Algot, CEO, Graphic Dimensions, a Kerio Authorized Partner in Edmonton, Alberta, in a statement.

"When a customer needs to add users, we can do so without having to purchase additional licenses. We go live as soon as a customer signs up and have been growing our business because we're providing stable Kerio products with flexible deployment options and better prices for our clients," said Algot.

Mirek Kren, vice president of sales, Kerio Technologies said that Kerio's SaaS program makes it more convenient for VARs to offer Kerio products as a hosted service.

"They simply pay a monthly invoice based on peak usage. It is a great way for them to appeal to customers who are looking to take advantage of the benefits of cloud computing while paying a monthly rental fee rather than make a large investment in IT," said Kren.

TMCnet in September reported that to offer next-generation IP communications standard, VoIP Unlimited, a UK "business grade" Internet Telephony (News - Alert) Service Provider (ITSP) has approved to work with Kerio Technologies. Kerio has become the SIP trunking partner of the VoIP Unlimited.