Microsoft Exchange hosting giant Intermedia is going the way of private
equity. Oak Hill Capital Partners announced it will acquire Intermedia and
appoint former Savvis CEO Phil Koen as
chairman and CEO of the New York-based hosting firm which just rolled out a
cloud-based backup service this spring.
“We are proud to have built this company from a startup to a
profitable, major player in the IT hosting industry, with no outside
investments,” said founder and majority shareholder in Intermedia, Michael Choupak,
in a statement. “We are now the leading
independent provider in a rapidly growing market. It is very exciting to see
Intermedia take this important step to the next level as it aligns itself with
great partners to drive further growth.”
Intermedia has relationships with 38,000 small and midsized business customers and 6,000-plus
channel partners. Distribution giant also partners with Intermedia as part of the company's cloud offerings. A spokeswoman said the deal will not change the relationship between the two companies and that Ingram Micro views the deal as a positive step towards continued growth for Intermedia.
Founded in 1995, Intermedia currently manages 320,000
premium Microsoft hosted Exchange mailboxes.
The company said in a statement that it will continue to
invest heavily “in high-quality 24 by 7 support, complimentary migration to the
cloud, innovative and easy-to-use technology, and always-on operations.”
Intermedia also plans to expand its cloud-based services
through new product introductions and acquisitions, the company said. For instance, Intermedia’s proprietary HostPilot
control panel enables customers and channel partners to access a suite of
cloud-based products from Exchange to Sharepoint to hosted PBX, archiving,
mobility options and more.
“As a pioneer and now significant player in cloud-based IT
services, Intermedia has tremendous potential for further growth by delivering
more cost-effective solutions to companies whose on-premise IT is moving to the
cloud,” said Koen. “We intend to build
Intermedia into a leading provider of a broad suite of cloud services to SMBs
and the channels that serve them, with Microsoft Exchange email as the core
service.”
The transaction is expected to close during the second
quarter of 2011.
Cloud Computing 
