One of the primary sponsors of the open source Joomla! web content management system project, UK-based hosting company Rochen, has announced the launch of hosting services in Australia.

Rochen, founded in early 2000, currently provides premium web hosting and reseller hosting solutions to clients in forty-two countries worldwide. The company has now launched a dedicated website at www.rochen.com.au with a range of services specifically targeted at Australian webmasters following what it says has been months of research into the hosting needs of the local market.

An advocate of open source software, Rochen along with VA Software and the Software Freedom Law Center, are the primary sponsors and supporters of the Joomla! project, a breakaway fork of the Mambo project which recently won an award at LinuxWorld Australia. The official Joomla! website, which is hosted by Rochen, receives more than 60 million hits per month.

Head of Rochen Australia, Brad Baker, based in Byron Bay, NSW, said the launch is driven by a void currently present in the Australian hosting market which Rochen believes it can fill with its quality of service and value for money offerings. "Rochen already has a substantial customer base in Australia, so the launch of Rochen Australia seemed a logical step for us," he said.
Christopher Adams, Rochen's Chief Executive Officer, believes Australian users will quickly adopt Rochen due to "its flexible, powerful and extensible" offer of premium web hosting services.

"Rochen has a long standing relationship with Australian users and now we will be offering fully-mature services with Australian representatives on the ground," Adams said. "As a hosting provider with over half a decade of experience and who is respected by our peers throughout the industry for our premium levels of customer support we feel our team will bring a lot of new and exciting services to Australian webmasters."

"From the very beginning, Rochen's philosophy has been service focused," he said. "We have built on this with our highly-dedicated support team. If a customer experiences a problem, we know a quick response is paramount to them."{moscomment}