By Glenna Hanley
The Daily Gleaner
A Canadian IT company that has survived the booms and bust of the high tech industry is starting to put down roots in the Atlantic region with its first branch office in Fredericton.
OnX Enterprise Solutions, an IT solutions provider, established an office here in July and will soon add another in Halifax.
OnX is privately owned, with headquarters in Toronto. First created in 1983, it is one of the older IT companies, with offices in five major cities and in Cambridge, Ont. in Canada and offices in Dallas, Texas, Atlanta, Georgia, and one in the United Kingdom.
The company employs about 250 and uses as many as 100 independent contractors.
Greg Guy, general manager for the eastern region and based on Ottawa, said in a telephone interview there was always a plan to expand into the Atlantic provinces.
“What drove that a little bit faster than even I anticipated was that Ryan (Veino) was working for us here in Ottawa and, like all good Maritimers, wanted to go home.”
Ryan Vieno, who grew up in Nova Scotia, is a senior consultant and OnX’s first representative in the Atlantic provinces. By February there will be a second one, located in Halifax.
Guy said Veino was one of the most senior technical resources in the Ottawa office so he was the best choice to send to Fredericton.
“We knew he would serve us well and be a great first person on the ground in the Atlantic provinces,” said Guy.
For his part Veino said he’s happy to be back in the Maritimes. But aside from that he saw that Fredericton had a particular potential for his company.
“When we looked at the Atlantic provinces Fredericton was definitely on the map because a lot of other IT companies were starting to locate here or have roots here. I certainly took into account that Fredericton was voted one of the top intelligent communities in the world,” said Veino.
Since coming here in July, Veino has already had contact with government representatives, talking about potential projects.
OnX is a multifaceted organization, providing a range of services, mainly to large companies and organization, including banks, insurance companies, universities, hospitals and all three levels of government.
“The Atlantic provinces customers are the same as customers elsewhere. They’re looking for organizations to help them work their way through what is sometimes a pretty complicated decision as far as what to build and how to build it and how to implement it,” said Guy.
What enables the company to deliver a broad range of services is its partnerships with other IT companies, many of them already operating in Atlantic Canada.
One of the largest is Cisco, and American-based multinational IT giant. OnX holds a gold certification from Cisco. Other partners are EMC, a storage organization and BM Ware.
“When we are helping a client is coming up with a solution it’s always a mix of a technical architect, the technical folks that come up with a design, guys like Ryan, and specific products. So we do a lot of work with Cisco-based solutions,” said Guy.
Helping organization to optimize the use of the technology and infrastructure they already have is one of OnX’s areas of expertise. Another is data centres.
“There is quite a bit of advancement in data centre technology over the last couple of years.
“There is a way to design, build and operate them to make them more efficient. That is certainly a sweet spot for us,” said Guy.
There may be other companies in this area that do what they do but Guy said OnX picks leading technology companies as partners. And in addition they will always choose the product and solutions that are best for their client.
“We work for our client and they like our unbiased, objective view of technology assessment.”
