Rival on horizon for city cloud computing

By Peter Ranscombe
Published on Sunday 18 December 2011 03:58

EUROPEAN computing giant MTI is opening an office in Edinburgh as it goes head-to-head with Angus MacSween’s Iomart Group in the “cloud computing” market.

Cloud computing allows users to store and access information in remote locations via the internet instead of keeping software and data on desktop computers.

MTI, which is based at Godalming, in Surrey, expects its Edinburgh office to bring in between £5 million and £6m-worth of business during the first year.

The firm – which has operations in France, Germany and the Netherlands – has already recruited five staff for the office but “expects to grow quickly”.

Edinburgh is the first branch to open as part of a Europe-wide expansion programme. The company will use its Scottish office to target the financial services sector, the oil and gas industry and the public sector.

The firm has identified a $500m (£322m) opportunity to take cloud computing to “mid-market” companies across the continent.

In July, MTI bought Global Secure System, the first of what the company expects to be a number of acquisitions as it carries out consolidation in the cloud computing market.

Ian Parslow, vice president of sales at MTI, said: “It is our clear goal to grow the success of the company’s cloud infrastructure consultancy. I am pleased we have commenced this process by opening our Edinburgh office, which benefits from local expertise, and we expect to continue this organic growth across Europe over the next few years.”

MTI emerged in its present form in 2007 when its American arm was split away from the European operations, which were then bought by venture capital fund Garnett & Helfrich. The fund is owned by a number of investors including several American universities.

Last year, Garnett & Helfrich sold Blade Network Technologies, which supplies components for computer networks, to IBM.

Cloud computing has become a valuable market for Scottish companies, with Glasgow-based Iomart leading the charge.

The Aim-quoted outfit – which last week held its place on the “core buy” list compiled by technology analysts at Peel Hunt – last month posted a doubling of interim pre-tax profits to £2.4m on the back of a 36 per cent rise in turnover to £15.4m. The firm’s profits can rise quickly because it owns its data centres – where information is stored – and so has fixed costs.

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