Xero, OSC choose Vic for headquarters
New Zealand cloud computing provider Xero has announced that Melbourne is set to become its Australian base of operations as its business further expands.
The company expects to create over 50 new jobs in the next five years, as the Wellington company continues to grow its business in Australia.
"Victoria gives Xero important advantages such as having a convenient headquarters to reach our expanding banking, finance and small business customer base as well as access to world-leading players," Xero CEO Rod Drury said in a statement.
The move was welcomed by Victorian ICT Minister John Lenders, who expected more jobs to be created in the industry as part of the Federal Government's National Broadband Network roll-out.
"With cloud computing continuing to boom in Victoria and globally, we will start to see more innovative companies like Xero taking advantage of our growing capability in developing and offering cloud services and infrastructure," he said.
Last week, Xero received a financial injection of NZ$4 million into the business from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.
The Xero's announcement comes as nSynergy CEO Karl Redenbach announced plans to hire 60 new employees for the headquarters of Microsoft gold certified partner Online Services Corporation (OSC).
Redenbach, who recently appeared on Channel Nine's The Secret Millionaire show, chose his native Melbourne as the location of the new headquarters.
"Melbourne has the skills and support we need to be a truly global company and take advantage of our role as the first global Microsoft partner to specialise 100 per cent in the online services space, expanding our reach into the US and the UK," he said in a statement.
"OSC will be one of the first Australian companies to bring Microsoft's cloud-based Online Services solutions to the Australian market," Lenders said of the announcement. "With increasing demand for cloud-based solutions following the recent announcement of Microsoft's Office 365, Online Services Corporation is well placed to continue Victoria's dominance of the ICT market.