Amcom moves into enterprise telephony, buys IP Systems

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 23 February 2010 09:39

IT Industry - Deals

Amcom Telecommunications (ASX: AMM) has acquired privately held IP Systems Pty Ltd, a provider of converged voice, video and data services to the enterprise market, for $6.5m ($5.3m in cash). The moves puts it in competition with iiNet in which it holds a 22 percent stake.

Amcom said the acquisition would expand its product range into enterprise voice solutions and increase its addressable market. Amcom's CEO Clive Stein said: "This gives us the potential to significantly increase Amcom's share of our customers' spend on telecommunications services.

"The acquisition also provides opportunities for Amcom to extend its market footprint, with an Amcom office now in most major capital cities. This means Amcom can better serve the needs of national customers and grow our business.

The move also puts Amcom in competition with iiNet in which it holds a 22 percent share. IP Systems was the first organisation in Australia to offer hosted IP telephony services of the BroadSoft platform, now used by Telstra, TelstraClear, Internode and by iiNet.

While iiNet's initial focus was the residential market it is moving increasingly into the small business market. At its annual results announcement this week iiNet said that revenues from its small business unit had grown 24 percent over the year to 31 December 2009, to $15.8m (more than IP Systems total revenue of around $12m). At 31 December iiNet had 130,000 VoIP services in operation, but gave no breakdown between residential and business.

Just under two years ago iiNet launched a new portal for business customers and Andy McIntyre iiNet's general manager business, told iTWire that the move represented the culmination of his four-year long ambition to take iiNet into the business market.

CONTINUED