Fax firm's Aussie ambitions escalate

Global fax and email vendor j2 Global has continued its Australian expansion by buying the assets of Melbourne web hoster Web24 Group.

The deal, terms of which were not disclosed, is the third in Australia this year for j2 Global, which is forecasting up to US$600 million in revenue for its 2014 financial year.

This year j2 Global bought the Sydney-based OzeFax and Brisbane-based Faxmate services. In 2010, j2 Global acquired Australian messaging company mBox and also previously bought local business Zintel Communications.

The Web24 purchase marks the entry of the US vendor into the global web hosting market and could see Web24's business expand overseas, according to a statement from j2 Global.

The acquisition "provides the infrastructure and expertise required to expand Web24’s business into additional countries, whether organically or via future acquisitions," reads the statement.

j2 Global chief Hemi Zucker said: “This positions us to leverage these assets to expand this business both within Australia and to other countries, broadening j2’s business cloud services solutions globally."

While internet fax and associated hosted services are a significant part of j2's operations, the company has been increasing its non-fax businesses. These now account for more than 52 percent of its revenue.

Web24 provides domain name, hosting and dedicated or shared servers to small and medium and enterprise businesses.

“We’re not one product offering and I think that was attractive to j2,” general manager Melinda Munns told CRN.

Munns said Web24 has a new cloud platform that will be launched in the next month or so, which she described as a “fully-elastic solution”.

Web24 will continue to store the data of its Australian customers in Australia, according to a statement fromn j2 Global.