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Recently in San Jose, TMC’s Erik Linask had the opportunity to interview 8x8’s CMO, Debbie Jo Severin (News - Alert).

This past month, TMC’s CEO Rich Tehrani wrote that video and VoIP pioneer 8x8 purchased Contactual (News - Alert), formerly known as White Pajama. “The two companies fit together very nicely -- there is synergy and a parallel line of thinking these entrepreneurial companies share. And they are geographically close as well, both in the Silicon Valley area.”

Severin told Linask that the company had just announced record earnings for the fiscal quarter, “We did $18.5 million; ten percent growth.”

She said that building out their cloud computing business was a major policy decision on the part of company management. Severin mentioned 8x8’s (News - Alert) purchase of Zerigo, a Colorado-based server provider. Zerigo offers cloud-based server operations, virtual private servers, managed DNS services and monitoring tools.

TMC’s (News - Alert) Laura Stotler wrote that the acquisition was part of 8x8 broadening its cloud-based portfolio through organic and inorganic activities. The company previously purchased Central Host, Inc. in May of 2010.

Severin recapped the acquisitions and where they fit in 8x8’s overall strategy, which she described as being more attuned to the cloud and the opportunities the company sees there, giving an example of advances in ease of telepresence connectivity.

“We’ve gone from providing telephony to being an alternative infrastructure provider,” she said, agreeing with Linask that while 8x8 has traditionally been seen as an SMB provider, they have been attracting larger customers. “They get benefits from distribution without having to buy hardware” to put employees on the system, she noted.