September 11th, 2006
Hosted Exchange is alive and well
Two long-established stalwarts of what was once known as the application service provider (ASP) industry joined forces today with the acquisition of Mi8 by Apptix. Those with long memories may remember Apptix better as the infrastructure software division of ASP pioneer Telecomputing, which span out from its parent in a demerger in 2002. Telecomputing, by the way, continues to thrive in its native Scandinavia.
Some interesting bits of information from the release announcing the acquisition today:
"Mi8 was profitable in the first half of 2006, generating $4.87 million in top line revenue and $4.61 million in recurring revenue during the period. During 2005, the company generated $6.45 million in top line revenue and $5.42 million in recurring revenue. The company presently has approximately 1,750 customers and 40,000 end users of Exchange. At the end of the second quarter, approximately 67% of users were from customers with more than 50 users."
"The combined entity will be a dominant market leader for Hosted Exchange with over 130,000 subscribers … Increasing Apptix’s pro forma top line revenue and monthly recurring revenue for the first half of 2006 to approximately $12.68 million and $12.03 million respectively, an increase of approximately 62.4% and 62.2% respectively."
The price tag for Mi8 was $21 million in cash. Apptix says that the acquisition makes it "the dominant leader in the delivery of on-demand messaging and collaboration solutions for the SMB market."
Regular readers may recall that Mi8’s president Patrick Fetterman contributed some spirited commentary on attitudes to email outsourcing back in February, when we discussed the true cost of running email in-house.
Phil Wainewright is a commentator and strategist on emerging software industry trends. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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