“It’s certainly nice to get industry recognition for the quality of work and the body of work that we provide our clients,” said Conpute president Don ConabyConpute was recognized for a body of work that included developing a wireless broadband solution for the Town of Georgina in Ontario’s York Region, a wireless broadband and VoIP solution for the Durham District School Board in Ontario and a disaster recovery solution for Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board in Peterborough, Ont.
Each of the implementations had its challenges said Terry Buchanan, Conpute’s vice-president and CTO.
The Town of Georgina project, for example, saw Conpute coordinating the laying and digging of foundations and the pouring concrete to erect 120 foot towers with wireless IP equipment, and also introduced the company to the nuances of government regulations and permits. The towers were needed to bring wireless broadband Internet access to the rural area.
“It was a new forte for us that we’re now very comfortable with,” said Buchanan. “We do a lot of towers now.”
A key to success in all three projects, said Conaby, was that all involved areas of emerging technology that Conpute began to invest in five years ago when Buchanan joined the company, such as broadband wireless, VoIP, disaster recovery and business continuity.
“It’s nice to see years of investment in these emerging technologies coming to impact solutions we’re implementing today,” said Conaby, adding the return on investment (ROI) in new emerging technologies is often a long ways out. “If you’re going to go down the path of getting heavily involved in a new technology, be prepared for a fairly long ROI cycle.”
For the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board, Conpute leveraged its investments in disaster recovery and secure wireless broadband to build a disaster recovery over wireless solution, while with the Durham District School Board Conpute’s wireless broadband expertise was utilized again along with its investment in VoIP to enable affordable and reliable communications to leased sites.
What made Conpute successful in all these implementations, said Buchanan, was its decision to focus on its core competencies.
“If you’re going to be successful in today’s economy you have to specialize,” said Buchanan.
All three projects were based on Compute’s base vertical of wireless broadband technology, with specialities in VoIP, data centres and disaster recovery layered on top.
“All we did was layer existing specializations together to create custom solutions,” said Buchanan. “If you’re not focusing on verticals or on a specific technology you’re not doing yourself any favours. One of the largest tasks I’ve had over the last few years was to actually streamline what we consider ourselves good at, and drop things that aren’t our specialty.”
