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As part of the deal, Zlago founder and CEO Michael Gold will now serve as the president of Intermedia and report directly to Phil Koen, current Intermedia chairman and CEO and former CEO of Savvis.

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.

“The Zlago acquisition will not only extend the level of cloud expertise within Intermedia, but it will also prove to be a catalyst for strategic growth within the Intermedia cloud services portfolio,” said Koen. “Intermedia gains Michael Gold’s management, cloud, and channel expertise – as well as important Zlago resources, such as deep relationships in the channel community. With Oak Hill’s resources behind Intermedia, we intend to build the leading provider of cloud services.”

Based in Washington, D.C., and categorized as one of the “100 Coolest Cloud Companies” by CRN, Zlago’s services derive from four data centers in the U.S. and U.K. With many vertical market offerings under its belt including “Doctors Office in the Cloud,” Zlago is well-known for its solutions in the legal and financial spaces.

According to a press release of the announcement, Zlago’s customers and channel partners throughout North America will go uninterrupted, despite the acquisition.

“Intermedia’s products and channel programs are widely viewed as best in class,” said Gold. “I am pleased to bring their superior 24x7 support, complimentary migration to the cloud, innovative technology, and always-on operations to Zlago’s partners. My focus at Intermedia will be on continuing to improve that industry-leading experience and extending it to an even broader set of cloud services. We have a great tradition to build on given Intermedia’s track record delivering enterprise-grade hosted Exchange – and recent additions such as hosted PBX (News - Alert), email encryption, and backup.”

Known as one of the 25 most innovative executives by CRN and Everything Channel in 2009 and 2010, Gold was CEO of cloud services software company Sphera, which he sold to cloud automation company Parallels, prior to joining Zlago. In addition, Gold has served as CEO of software company Vicorp, and was senior vice president of Qwest (News - Alert) Communications.

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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