Two's company for well-respected provider

By ADAM GIFFORD

Bucking a trend towards industry consolidation, long-established internet provider Kiwilink has been sold by founders Chris and Fiona Miller to another couple.

Chris Miller said larger companies had looked at the venture but "didn't want to pay anything for it".

Kiwilink only has about 1000 customers, but is well-respected by web designers for its hosting capability, and unlike most New Zealand ISPs, has more traffic going out than coming in.

New owners Nick and Catriona Cory do not plan radical changes.

"It is a good solid business with a good technology platform and good relationships with customers," said Nick Cory, who has a background in accounting and IT with large organisations.

Kiwilink began in 1994 as PlaNet, after Miller had spent 10 years running a bulletin board for Amstrad users and a Fidonet gateway for the NZ Microcomputer Club.

"A friend at the Micro Club said 'Get rid of those DOS and OS/2 servers and get real Unix', so I did," he said.

"We wanted to get into ecommerce, but there were no secure servers available and the banks wouldn't talk to us back then, so we became an ISP with dial-up access to pay the bills."

Miller said running an ISP on top of his photography business was too time-consuming.