The Fast & The Furious

Two years later, Terry Keene was president and CEO of Integration Systems, and by 2004, its second year in business, the company had already achieved its IBM Premier Business Partner status and was growing like gangbusters. "It's been really fun," Keene says. "We deliver IBM's technology, philosophy and vision to the marketplace for them. It's an exciting place to be."

Integrated Systems, Deerfield Beach, Fla., grew its net sales 525 percent, to $11.4 million in 2005 from $1.8 million in 2003. The company has expanded dramatically in its first four years, opening offices in Boston, Atlanta and Puerto Rico. It plans to open another office in the southeast sometime in the next 12 months.

• Groupware: A Startling Comeback • Paragon: Mining Colorado Gold • NueVista: Why Slow Down? • Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off • Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining • Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales • MTM: The Road Less Traveled • EBS: Manna In The "M" Of SMB • ACS: A Simple Services Formula • Network Innovations: Go VoIP, Young Man

Integration Systems is very gung ho on IBM and puts most of its focus on bringing incremental revenue for the vendor. "We do mostly competitive opportunities," he says. "We go into big Sun Solaris shops or [Hewlett-Packard] shops wondering whether to move to [Intel's] Itanium or move to something else, and we help them move to something else."

Keene tells potential customers: We can virtualize your infrastructure, optimize your infrastructure and build SOA capability into it. "It's a difficult job," he says. "First, you win their hearts, then you win their minds."

He says you have to win their hearts with cost savings, then you win their minds by showing them how to bring on-demand virtualization technology into their environment. "I tell them, 'I want to be a partner, and I'm willing to earn that status.' "