"We now own a piece of the Internet," jokes Nick Hoague, co-owner of OnePointSync, "In fact, we bought it from Al Gore."

All joking aside, OnePointSync just got approval for having a third circuit added for a dedicated 100MB fiber line and adding a full class C network into its data center. That's amazing when you consider it was just six years ago that Nick and co-owner, Ray Lund, met purely by chance while they were each working for other companies at a client's site.

They quickly discovered they shared a vision of what delivering great IT service was all about. And within days they'd formed a new business, OnePointSync. "It was love at first sight," grinned Ray, "Nick became my work wife. We've been inseparable ever since."

Ray and Nick discovered early on that small and medium-sized businesses without an on-site IT resource were hungry for their services. Originally they focused on supporting their clients' back rooms filled with servers and other IT equipment, providing email, hosting, and data services.

"When we first started out, we were so frustrated with Exchange email," said Ray, "After 16 hours of banging our head against the wall trying to set up our own Exchange server, we went up to Apple's website." They discovered Kerio's Connect product and immediately downloaded it.

Nicholas Hoague, co-founder, OnePointSync, Denver, CO

Twelve minutes later

"Twelve minutes later, our email was up and running," said Ray, "It just blew us away. After a month of using Kerio Connect ourselves, we realized it was a very sellable product. That began our great relationship with Kerio. We've never looked back. Our clients love Kerio products -- their easy administration, reliability, and stability. They love being able to go into the software for any product because they all work exactly the same. It's so easy for them."

"That part of our business has been going really well," continued Ray, "But lately, many of our clients have become tired of paying for their on-site server room and paying $10,000 - $20,000 to replace servers as they aged and died."

For the past eight months, more and more clients have asked OnePointSync to move them onto the cloud. To meet that demand, the partners decided to build their own data center to ensure the level of reliability and security their clients demanded.

"Clients quickly saw that it was more cost-effective and efficient to move over to our cloud," said Ray, "Which can be a pretty nerve-wracking thing for them to do. But because they've come to trust us over the years, it was a no-brainer for them. They're thrilled to have the latest hardware and software running for them.

"For us, building our own data center was the next logical step in our business. Using our combined skills, knowledge, and expertise we built a data center to our specifications without any compromises. Adding in the new class C network is only one example of that."

Ray Lund, co-founder, OnePointSync, Denver, CO

A winding road to VoIP

OnePointSync is also seeing more clients moving to VoIP. "I hate analog phone systems," admitted Ray, "So I wouldn't listen to Nick, who kept telling me we needed to look at Kerio's Operator product. I finally caved. We got the beta version, ran it on our phone and it was fantastic. I'm now a VoIP convert. So when our next client called and wanted VoIP, we were able to drop in a 22-user Operator system in just 45 minutes. The clients were flabbergasted. They thought they wouldn't have phones for two to three days when instead, their phones were up in two minutes."

Nick adds, "With Kerio's Control and Operator in play, I can set up phone systems from my couch using my iPad, in just minutes! Everything in Kerio is so manageable and easy. I like to brag that we pre-configured a firewall and shipped it to Georgia with two cables. Called them from a bar and told them where to plug the cables in. Once the Internet was working for them, I finished the configuration in just minutes and went back to celebrating Happy Hour."

Life is great at OnePointSync. Business is growing and expanding. "Last year we saw 73% growth," says Ray, "And it hasn't slowed down. We're already doing more business this year, than were doing last year at this time." And add to that their 93% customer retention rate.

OnePointSync has also become a resource for lots of local IT services consultants in Colorado and elsewhere. "These guys don't want to do hosting, many don't want or know how to move clients to the cloud. So they bring them to us and we pay them a commission. They're even willing to wear OnePointSync shirts when they're out servicing customers and representing us." This cohesive and mutually profitable ecosystem is such a great model that other Kerio partners might want to adopt it.