Proactive Technologies' Latest Initiative Is Living Up To Its Name

When multicore processors started to become available, the Dallas-based Intel Premier Provider didn't wait for its ISV customers to come to them to figure out how to use the additional horsepower to boost the performance of their software, said Kenny Kremm, president of Proactive.

Rather, Proactive decided to work with its OEM software partners to run benchmarks and fine-tune its systems to run their software.

Proactive got NFR copies of their customers' software and began working with a number of different configurations of processors, memory and disc drives to design machines specifically optimized for each of its big customers' software.

And the success of this initiative is what Kremm says is responsible for Proactive's solid growth—1,700 units sold in 2006, a 66 percent jump over the 1,025 units the custom systems builder sold in 2005. Nearly 80 percent of the units were servers.

"We're in a niche market, and it's a value-add we can offer our customers," said Kremm of the new initiative. "I would say it's the No. 1 reason for our increase in sales from 2005 to 2006."

Proactive, a nine-year-old company with 12 employees and 2006 sales of $6.9 million, focuses exclusively on the printing and publishing industry vertical market.

The company sells direct to some customers and software vendors but also has developed a channel through which 60 percent to 70 percent of its sales flow. Its customer list includes printing and publishing software vendors such as Fujifilm Graphic Systems, GMG Color, ONYX Graphics and Artwork Systems.

"They all need servers as the engine to drive their processes," Kremm said, "and they have never tested to determine how much horsepower they really need."

Next: The New Initiative