Aug. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Parallels Chief Executive Officer Serguei Beloussov says he wants to take the software maker public in about two years, striving to stay independent.

Companies including Microsoft Corp. and International Business Machines Corp. have “casually” approached him about an acquisition, Beloussov said in an interview last week. Parallels, based in Renton, Washington, would consider a bid if it provided a significant premium, he said, without elaborating.

Parallels’ software lets computers run multiple operating systems. The market for so-called virtualization software, which lets clients reduce costs by buying fewer machines, will more than double to $4 billion in 2013, according to research firm Gartner Inc. Parallels competes in some areas with market leader VMware Inc.

“For a few years, it is a fairly green field” in terms of growth opportunities, said Alan Dayley, a Gartner analyst in Alpine, Utah. “The main reason is the promise of cost savings.”

VMware went public two years ago, in the biggest U.S. technology initial public offering since Google Inc. in 2004.

Parallels, which has about 700 employees and $100 million in annual revenue, still needs to expand before offering shares, Beloussov said. VMware, spun off from EMC Corp., had about $1.9 billion in sales last year.

Parallels tailors many of its programs for small- and medium-sized businesses. That could help it compete against VMware, “the 800-pound gorilla” competitor, which mainly targets large businesses, Dayley said.

“Corporate accounts are definitely more penetrated than the small and medium enterprises,” Dayley said. “There is a lot of room there.”

Seven U.S. technology companies have held IPOs this year. There were only four last year, down from more than 50 in 2007, as the recession crimped computer and software sales.

Scott Brooks, a spokesman at IBM in Armonk, New York, declined to comment. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail request for comment.

To contact the reporter on this story: Katie Hoffmann in New York at khoffmann4@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: August 18, 2009 16:05 EDT