Omnidrive website vanishes

Questions are being raised this morning about whether high-profile Australian Web 2.0 start-up Omnidrive has closed its doors, with the company's site being replaced by what appears to be some form of newsletter service offering financial rewards.

Omnidrive's website
(Credit: Renai LeMay/ZDNet.com.au)

Dubbed "Amnesty Financial Plus", the Omnidrive.com service now asks if readers are "Strapped for Cash". "Approved applicants receive their money in hours!" it shouts. Omnidrive chief executive officer Nik Cubrilovic did not immediately respond to an email query about whether the start-up was still alive and kicking.

Over the past year a number of events have signalled that Omnidrive, which received a high level of media attention after it was highlighted by US-based technology blog TechCrunch several years ago, was headed downhill.

The start-up's former chief technology officer Phil Morle, quit in August 2007 after just six months on the job, stating employees had not been paid and Omnidrive's offices in Wollongong and Sydney had been vacated.

Perth-based investor and tech entrepreneur Clay Cook, who was an angel investor in Omnidrive, also wrote a public letter stating his lack of confidence in the firm.

In early July this year, Cubrilovic said the firm was still "churning along".

"We are doing [development] work: about to launch a new product, probably in two-three months," he told bootstrappr at the time. "We looked at a number of merger deals with competitors for the storage engine, and one of those might pan out."