Putting The Right Pieces In Place

The company grew 418 percent between 2003 and the end of 2005, earning it the 10th spot on the 2006 CRN Fast Growth 100 list with $50 million in revenue. In 2006, the company expects to break the $100 million mark, said Chairman and CEO Tom Sweeney.

Incentra, Boulder, Colo., was formed in August 2004 from the merger of Porch Digital and Mass Storage International and has been on an acquisitions spree with the purchase of four solution providers in the United States.

"Acquiring the solution providers and overlaying services is what has created the phenomenal growth we're going through," said Sweeney.

Incentra hopes to continue to grow through VAR acquisitions in the United States and by extending its managed services to the customer base to which it sells products and services. The MSP's strongest operations are in the western United States where it has operations stretching from Chicago to Dallas. Incentra is looking to grow in the eastern United States as well.

"We do quite a bit of organic growth ourselves, but the reality is it takes a long time to do it and it's quite expensive. It is still true that it's less expensive for us to acquire a good company to gain their sales professionals, their engineers, their existing customer relationships. It's less expensive for us to do that then [it is] to build it organically—and it happens much faster," Sweeney said. The midmarket is a natural fit for managed storage services and an opportunity for additional growth, he added.

"When you look at the storage marketplace worldwide, there are a couple of things that become apparent. The midtier marketplace doesn't get attention directly from the manufacturers, and when you look at the services that are in the marketplace, a majority of those are being consumed by the tier-one clients," Sweeney said.

"We knew that there was an opportunity in the midtier enterprise market to sell managed services on a smaller basis. We knew that there was an opportunity to deliver managed services there because of the complexity of the customer space," he said.

Incentra has more than 1,800 customers and 190 employees and manages more than 1,500 Tbytes of data on thousands of servers. Its network operations center in Broomfield, Colo., is one of 43 centers—other locations are throughout North America, Europe and Japan—at which it manages and stores its customers' information.

Transcore, a midmarket transportation solution company based in Beaverton, Ore., became an Incentra customer when Incentra acquired Transcore's solution provider.

Dan Barde, an executive at Transcore, said it was the relationship he had with his salesperson, which carried through the company's acquisition, that keeps him an Incentra customer. "If I felt we needed an issue escalated or if I felt we could do better on pricing, I'm not afraid to tell [my salesperson] how I feel. [My salesperson] works great with us," he said.

So far, Incentra has helped Transcore implement its intrusion-detection system and has served as the company's backup when its engineers have gone on vacation. It also outsources the maintenance of its Sun Microsystems infrastructure to Incentra. In addition, Transcore is considering using the solution provider for other services such as backup.

Barde said Incentra also offers solid educational programs for its customers. "Since they've become a larger business in our area, they've been putting on more and more demonstrations and talks. I've benefited from that, and I've been able to bring my engineers to those talks as well," he said. "I'm very happy with them and look forward to expanding business down the road with them as long as it fits within our plans and it all works out. I don't have any problems giving them more business."

Midmarket company Recycled Paper Greetings is a 300-person greeting card operation in Chicago and has been an Incentra customer for about a year. RPG outsources its backup to Incentra to supplement its daytime staff. RPG also purchased monitoring services for its SAN environment. "I've been very happy with their service. I like them as a company. They value me as a customer [and] they seem to have done all the right things needed to satisfy our goals," said Mike Vezinaw, data center manager at RPG.