2007 Fast Growth 100: Company Profiles

GROUPWARE TECHNOLOGY

Groupware, which last year was the fastest-growing solution provider in CRN's Fast Growth survey, managed to repeat that feat this year with another spectacular growth in business between 2004 and 2006 of nearly 3,200 percent, just shy of its 3,900 percent growth from 2003 to 2005.

In last year's survey, Groupware was cited for growing revenue in 2005 to $31 million from just $767,000 in 2003, thanks to a rebuilding process it went through after outside investors acquired the ailing solution provider and started mining its customer list for prospective customers, said Groupware President Mike Thompson.

That rebuilding process also led revenue to grow to $59 million in 2006, up from $1.8 million in 2004, he said.

However, revenue growth from 2005 to 2006 was a more stately 90 percent as the solution provider matured. Thompson said he never expected that early growth to go on forever. "I don't see that growth rate happening again," he said.

But even more important, at least for future growth, is Groupware's expanded investment in developing new vendor partners, including Cisco Systems, Oracle and Network Appliance, to complement its platform focus on Sun Microsystems, Thompson said.

"We've had them on our line card but hadn't put a lot of resources behind them," he said. "Now we still lead with Sun but get cross-solution sets. Or we can lead with another vendor and bring Sun in."

For instance, Groupware recently became a Cisco-certified partner with advanced security specialization and unified communications specialization, focusing on VoIP opportunities.

The solution provider also recently became one of Oracle's three All Partner Territory program partners on the West Coast. "Oracle has a sales force dedicated to bringing opportunities only through the channel," Thompson said. "It's Oracle's way to engage with the channel and leverage channel relationships. So we have built out our Oracle services capability."

Groupware also has built up a storage practice based on its relationship with NetApp and became a Platinum partner of the vendor within only six months, Thompson said. The solution provider has also just taken on Hitachi Data Systems as a partner, but that relationship is too new to have generated any revenue yet, he said.

"All the vendor relationships work together," Thompson said. "Depending on the customer, we can talk [about] different vendors. This is opening the door to a lot of cross-sales opportunities."

Joseph F. Kovar

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