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A pioneer in providing secure cloud-based business e-mail and hosted Exchange services, Intermedia (News - Alert) is about to undergo a major, significant change.

Private equity firm Oak Hill Capital Partners has announced its plans to acquire Intermedia for an undisclosed sum. As a result of the purchase, Phil Koen, former CEO of Savvis, Inc., will also join Intermedia as CEO and chairman.

Now boasting an industry-leading 320,000 premium Microsoft (News - Alert) hosted Exchange mailboxes, as well as 38,000 business customers and 6,800 global channel partners, Intermedia continues to lead the industry as the largest third-party provider of hosted Exchange services to SMBs throughout the U.S. With its user base growing at an annual compounded rate of 31 percent over the past four years, Intermedia is positioned to further grow and invest heavily in outside partners.

"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. We are now the leading independent provider in a rapidly growing market," said Michael Choupak (News - Alert), the founder and majority shareholder of Intermedia. "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."

While Intermedia already offers its customers a full-service experience, the hosted Exchange leader will continue to invest in high-quality, 24/7 support, “complimentary” cloud migration, innovative and efficient technology, and always-available operations. Meanwhile, this acquisition is also a step toward new product introductions and other potential acquisitions.

With Koen at the helm, Intermedia plans to help accelerate the ongoing shift of the corporate premise to the cloud. Touted as a significant leader in the data center industry and pioneer in its shift to cloud services, Koen, as well as Oak Hill Capital Partners, are well-equipped to help Intermedia become the premier cloud services provider.

"Oak Hill Capital and Phil Koen are the perfect partners to help Intermedia realize its full potential, given the combination of their strong capital base, deep industry knowledge, and history of successfully growing companies like ours," said Serguei Sofinski, outgoing Intermedia CEO and shareholder. "Intermedia is well-positioned to be the premier provider of cloud services given the full-service experience we have developed for our customers -- and the proprietary cloud infrastructure and tools we use to deliver it."

The Oak Hill Partners-Intermedia transaction is expected to close during 2Q 2011.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2011, taking place Sept. 13-15, 2011, in Austin, Texas. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. To register, click here.

Tammy Wolf is a TMCnet web editor. She covers a wide range of topics, including IP communications and information technology. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Jennifer Russell