IntraIP buys Cove

Web host Cove has been bought out by IntraIP, a new company headed by its former national sales manager.

In a statement posted to the Cove's forums, IntraIP chief executive officer Cheyne Jonstone said the acquired brand will be phased out in the next eight weeks.

Most of Cove's systems and staff will move to IntraIP, with a couple exceptions.

Craig Marchant took the role of chief technical officer and Michael Band became chief information officer.

Paul Lansbury became customer relationship manager, replacing Mark Price who left to pursue full-time study.

Jonstone said the company will replicate its Australian business in other markets globally. It has built an IntraIP presence in the US and has plans for New Zealand, Britain, Singapore and Canada.

He hoped to put on the first US customers in August.

Difficulties securing the Cove domain name in these countries led to the name change, Jonstone said.

He denied a "run of bad luck" - including exposure to the Primus data centre meltdown and Bottle Domains saga - were contributing factors.

"It took us close to four weeks to actually come up with a name that not only suited the business but had all the domain names available," he said.

"There were four A4 pages with random names written all over them but I shredded them just a couple of days ago."

Jonstone said IntraIP had attracted "a small number" of minority investors to fund storage area network arrays to add redundancy to the company's hosting infrastructure.

The company will also retire the Cove-owned Redrack brand and services but will support its co-location and wholesale IP customers.