NTT today revealed it would purchase 70 percent of Australian technology services firm Frontline Systems, in the Japanese technology consortium’s second major step into the Australian market, following the acquisition of tier two IT services player Dimension Data in mid-2010.
In a statement issued this afternoon, NTT said it would purchase 70 percent of Frontline, which was established in 1992/1993 and provides IT infrastructure, consulting and managed services — with key relationships with HP, IBM and Oracle’s Sun Microsystems. Frontline also owns Harbour MSP, a hosting company which has rapidly been expanding its profile over the past year.
“This acquisition confirms and fortifies our strategy to be the ICT partner of choice both globally and now locally in Australia and New Zealand,” said Sadao Maki, senior executive vice president of NTT Com. “The addition of the managed IT infrastructure professionals at Frontline Systems and its subsidiaries is a perfect complement to our subsidiary NTT Australia’s well-established network business serving the rapidly evolving enterprise cloud market in the ANZ region.”
Frontline is forecasting sales revenue of $277 million this financial year to June. THe company has datacentres, warehousing and sales operations in Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide and Singapore.
“As an organization poised for further growth in the Australian market and beyond, Frontline views the involvement of NTT Com as an investor with tremendous excitement,” said Frontline chief executive and founder Steve Murphy.
“The alliance will mean that Frontline is bolstered by NTT Com’s depth of knowledge and resources in networking and communications, while we continue to extend service offerings beyond our core strengths in infrastructure and managed services.”
It remains unclear why NTT only took 70 percent in Frontline and not the further 30 percent, but Delimiter is attempting to speak with Frontline this afternoon on the matter.