OS33 sets up shop down under

Global firm OS33 has become the latest in a line of cloud vendors to succumb to the lure of the Australian market, announcing the opening of a Sydney office this week.

The platform-as-a-service provider first set up shop in the United States in 2009, growing to now hold over 50 channel partners with 100,000 end points in that market, and expanding its presence in the UK, Ireland and Canada.

OS33’s offering involves a three-tiered cloud automation platform including a customisable “webtop” (web-based desktop) with access to all company applications, data and services.

OS33 president Jacob Kazakevic told CRN the company’s primary business was to provide a platform for MSPs and partners to deliver and shift traditional managed services to the cloud. 

He said it was a “no-brainer” to move to the Australian market.

“It’s a complete unified platform, and we make it extremely easy for our partners and customer to take their managed IT offering and shift it to the cloud, quickly and effectively,” he said.

“We have a very unique solution, the webtop, which makes it simple to access those applications from any device. The demand for our product is there.”

Heading up the local operation will be former CEO of Computer Care Australia Damien Stephens, who will later be joined by a partner support manager and deployment engineer. 

Stephens said local managed service providers had already shown an interest, with 15 to 20 partners already on board ahead of the company’s launch at the CeBIT conference this week. 

“We’re not aiming for thousands of partners, we want quality,” he said. “We see the opportunity as vertically-focused as well, there are lots of companies looking to convert their platform into a cloud solution.”

OS33 maintains a presence in Global Switch and Infraserve’s data centres locally. Kazakevic said he understood the importance of holding Australian data on Australian soil.

“We are setting up the environment and platform in Australia physically, it will be very intimate for the local market, where the infrastructure and storage is located, and where the actual platform runs,” he said.

“For the Australian market it’s important to have everything on the continent.”

Kazakevic declined to comment on the privately held company’s US sales figures and market share. He admitted progress in the UK and Ireland had been lacklustre, but said he hoped to replicate OS33’s strength in the US market. 

“In Australia we are learning from previous experience, and the reception of our product by our partners was great,” he said.

“My hopes in the Australian market are much higher, and we are very happy to work with Damien, who has experience in the MSP and channel market.”

OS33 joins fellow US virtualisation vendor CorePlus, which last month launched in Australia with the help of data centre operator and OS33 landlord Infraserve.

CorePlus CEO Marc Landry said Australia was an untapped goldmine for products like CorePlus’ cloud management platform, a middle management layer that sits on top of Infraserve’s infrastructure.

“Australia is a hotbed for cloud services, there’s good knowledge and acceptance of the cloud here,” he said.

“There’s a huge percent of virtualisation throughout Australia, and therefore a much better educated client than we’re seeing elsewhere.”