Corrections or additions?
These articles by Barbara Fox were prepared for the
September 5, 2001 edition of U.S. Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Life in the Fast Lane: Real Soft, Breze, ProtoView
Not every information technology firm is laying off
workers; some fortunate ones are expanding — Real Soft, Breze,
and ProtoView for example. Real Soft has expanded to 11,200 square
feet on Route 130. Breze has doubled its space to nearly 2,200 square
feet on Quakerbridge Road. And ProtoView has merged with another
company
and is moving from 5,000 feet on Route 130 to 15,000 feet at Windsor
Corporate Park.
Real Soft is surviving the current telecom downturn by providing
contract
services, and it has expanded to Crestan Associates’ Cranbury Campus,
a space found by Paul Goldman of Commercial Property Networks. With
450 employees in the United States plus 70 in Bangalore, it has about
24 people at this new headquarters.
A prime vendor for AT&T since 1997, Real Soft is also doing work for
Lucent and IBM — all in networking and development, everything
from C++ to voice over (IVR) support, development, and networking
testing — and it supplies staff through 26 subcontracting
companies.
Rajan Desai, president of Real Soft Inc., has a bachelor’s degree
in chemical engineering from the University of Baroda in India (Class
of ’82) and a master’s in computer science from Texas Tech. In 1991,
after stints with AT&T, Lehman Brothers, and Paine Webber, he started
his business. “I saw the need that there were major corporations
that wanted contract workers,” he says.
Often Real Soft is asked to “provision” a new system. This
involves determining what the client needs — cables, power,
access,
satellite license, for instance — and whether the proposed system
will be compatible with existing and contemplated technology, whether
the host country can support the technology, and whether it can handle
anticipated loads. Then it builds a mini-system for the client and
tests it in a micro environment.
Careful attention to team building is one element of Real Soft’s
success.
“Because the technology is constantly evolving the good people
are hard to find,” says Sharon Paulmier, account manager.
“Right
now, IVR is hot, and we have had a resurgence of a need for Unix Java
people. We are spread out all over the country, and I spend a great
deal of time on the road, visiting people and managers. I am available
24 hours a day because our people work here 24 hours a day.”
“Most of our people are working in a team format and the dynamics
of the team, strengths and weaknesses, are very important,” says
Paulmier. “Certainly keeping client managers happy is part of
my job but so is making sure our employees are feeling appreciated
and resolving any issues they may have. We have an inhouse attorney,
Inderjit Sidhu, to handle not only the contracts and subcontractor
agreements, but also immigration issues.”
About half the workers are Asian, many from China but also from other
areas of the Pacific Rim, and there are also contingents from the
Middle East, eastern Europe, and South America. Last year’s winter
party brought together nearly 400 people at Chutney Mary’s on Route
1 in Monmouth Junction.
Real Soft Inc., 2540 Route 130, Cranbury CampusSuite 118, Cranbury 08512. Rajan Desai, president. 609-436-3636; fax,609-436-3637. Home page: www.realsoftinc.comTop Of PageBreze DoublesBreze Inc. has doubled in size with a move fromPrincetonMeadows Office Center to 2,200 square feet in the Mercadien Group’sbuilding on Quakerbridge Road. Counting its contractors, this computerconsulting and software development firm employs 25 people. ForFortune500 firms it focuses on electronic commerce and decision support,as well as on direct marketing.Both Samir Patel and Rita Patel had had significant careers beforethey founded Breze Inc. in 1991. Samir had worked at Digital Equipmentand Hewlett Packard, and Rita had worked at Allied Signal andBloomberg.They cater to a niche market, doing large scale systems for decisionsupport — data warehousing and data mining. “Breze looks ata client’s existing data and focuses on maximizing the profit throughefficient and effective analysis, and then presents the results viaweb interfaces or other media in a meaningful way,” says JerryKonecny, vice president of professional services at Breze.The Patels’ growth strategy is one that many consulting firms try— but fail — to emulate. Start off with one major client,a dependable one that preferably is in the Fortune 100 category, andbut don’t depend on that client. Energetically look elsewhere fornew clients. It’s the “don’t put your eggs in one basket”principle, says Konecny, and many a company has learned this the hardway. Konecny, a graduate of Honeywell Institute for InformationSciencesin New York, joined the company last year after 17 years with AT&Tand extensive work for General Electric in Piscataway.For instance, Breze’s initial major client was Bristol-Myers Squibb.Until a year ago, the B-MS business was responsible for more than50 percent of revenues. Now B-MS represents just one-third of thebusiness — an achievement of which Konecny can be proud.”Sincelast year we have acquired sufficient numbers of new clients so thatBristol-Myers Squibb no longer makes up more than half of thebusiness,”says Konecny.”For any business to succeed, you need to diversify your clientbase,” he cautions. He points out that you become more valuableto other clients if you have a variety of solutions in your portfolio.And you are investing in the leading edge technologies when you trainor hire people with those skills to meet new customer needs.Another Breze strategy worth noting is to leverage relationships withsuppliers. When Breze’s accounting firm, Druker Rahl & Fein, movedfrom Farber Road to Quakerbridge Road, it set up an umbrellaorganization,the Mercadien Group, to offer additional services. Then it beganinvitingappropriate firms to come “live” under its umbrella and rentspace, Breze took the offer.”We saw it as a win win situation,” says Konecny. Rather thanpurchase its own local area network and 24 by 7 server support, Brezecould use the existing set-up on Quakerbridge Road. “Before thiswe have had to work those issues on our own. And when we offer theseservices to our own customers, we can speak from our experience.”He compares this to tasting the menu before putting it on the tableat a restaurant. “To move ahead with any type of relationshipwith Mercadien, we would want to understand what their truecapabilitiesare.”Breze hopes to add Application Service Provider (ASP) types ofservicesto its data mining and management services. The most common ASPserviceis providing web portals, but others might be customer relationshipmanagement support and decision support. Konecny is particularlyenthusiasticabout out-tasking “inter-enterprise relationships.” An exampleof this is when a company decides to set up an E-mail correspondencewith its vendors but doesn’t have the in-house staff with the timeand skills to accomplish this.”It’s especially useful for short-term projects,” saysKonecny,”much as if you used FedEx to pick up and deliver your packagesrather than take them to the post office.””Mercadien and Breze offer a much larger scope of services thanwe can offer independently,” says Konecny, and he agrees thatreferral sales between building occupants may indeed be stimulatedby propinquity.No one company can provide all the services and solutions that clientsneed, says Konecny. “If Breze and Mercadien can developapplicationstailored to the business needs of the clients, the biggest winnerswould be our customers. I don’t think there is a firm out there thatdoesn’t need data mining technology.”— Barbara FoxBreze Inc., 3625 Quakerbridge Road, Hamilton 08619.Samir and Rita Patel, owners. 609-587-4200; fax, 609-587-7200.www.breze.comTop Of PageProtoView MergesIn January Dean Guida’s software company, ProtoView,merged with Long Island-based Sheridan Software Systems & Trade, andformed Infragistics Inc. ProtoView builds software components thathelp build web applications on all the major platforms. Only adevelopmentlab remains on Long Island, and the new company’s programmers arecrammed into just 5,000 square feet on Route 130.Guida — ProtoView’s 36-year-old founder — remains as CEO andpresident. “We are negotiating a lease and moving to the old RCAbuilding at Windsor Corporate Park,” says Guida, “where wehave about 15,000 square feet with options to acquire another 15,000.We hope to move in the fourth quarter — we have 40 people nowand are doubled up in offices and are out in the hallway.” Heexpects to grow to 78 employees. Peter Dodds, of Keller DoddsWoodworth,found this space for Guida.Protoview was founded in 1989 by this Jersey-born computer prodigy,the son of a legal secretary and a restaurateur. He began his runat 21 as a University of Miami software writer. He and his wife,Karen,formerly a software designer at Wave Systems, have three childrenunder six — two girls and a boy.Protoview’s client list has included Delta Airlines, Merrill Lynch,the New York Stock Exchange, UPS, FedEx, and Morgan Stanley. “Wehave sold to every Fortune 2000 company out there,” says Guida.”Goldman Sachs has standardized on us.”Sheridan focused on tools for Microsoft’s Visual Studio, and ProtoViewworked on Java and ActiveX, and this combination is billed as the”the largest privately held component vendor in that marketspace.”The new company offers components and services to build web-basedapplications using COM, Java and .NET environments. In January, 2000the firm was chosen as one of 10 companies to fashion pre-builtcomponentsfor the beta version of Microsoft’s .NET platform.The firm’s most recent hire, Anthony R. Ferrara as director ofprofessionalservices, had been director of CRM Consulting for IntelliCorp andhas worked with such clients as the U.S. Department of Defense, IBM,SAP, and Siemens.Infragistics will continue to support COM products from the two formercompanies outside UltraSuite, which will now be referred to as ClassicProducts. Its products will continue to be sold through domestic andinternational partners such as ComponentSource, Corporate Software,Programmers Paradise, The Programmer’s Supershop, and VBXtras.”As the CEO of Infragistics I no longer write softwareapplicationsand I do miss doing that,” says Guida. “The merger hasprovidedme with the opportunity of running a leading software company. Ona daily basis I come face to face with the challenges of today’sfast-pacedmarketplace; this involves recognizing the latest technology trendsand developing new applications that deliver added value and benefitsto our customers. Working with the young and talented staff atInfrafgisticsto develop these industry leading applications for a constantlyevolvingmarketplace is what brings me great satisfaction.””We are doing our part to make it easier for programmers to buildapplications,” says Guida.Infragistics/ProtoView Development, 2540 Route130, Cranbury 08512. Dean Guida, president. 609-655-5000; fax,609-655-5353.Www.infragistics.comNext StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
