If you’re keeping score, Xwave now has an office in every province in Atlantic Canada due to a purchase announced Monday.
Xwave said it has acquired Icon Data Systems,
located in Charelottetown, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition of Icon establishes the consulting firm’s footprint in P.E.I., said Eastern business unit vice-president Bill Davis.
Icon caters almost exclusively to small and medium-sized P.E.I. businesses, said Todd Clark, the former Icon president who will now become Xwave’s manager of business development for the province. “”The bulk of them fit into a category that can’t afford their own internal resources, so we stepped up and became that resource for them on a small to medium LAN management-type of product,”” he said. The company also offers a hardware and software fulfillment service.
The government of P.E.I. is also an Icon customer, but Xwave will focus its efforts on small and medium-sized companies in the province, said Davis. “”(Clark’s) experience and his team’s experience in the SME space complements Xwave’s strategy to increase our penetration within (that) space,”” he said. According to Davis, 98 per cent of the businesses in P.E.I. are small or medium-sized.
He added that there may be some room for Icon to take on larger clients in P.E.I. by drawing on Xwave resources. Davis noted that 1,400 of P.E.I.’s population of approximately 135,000 are employed in the IT sector.
“”There is opportunity here. Obviously it’s not the same opportunity as in our marketplace like Boston . . . but we think there’s a reasonable, sustainable, incremental business opportunity,”” said Davis.
As a result of the purchase, two Xwave employees will move to P.E.I., bringing the total headcount to eight. Icon has two offices in the province, one in Charlottetown and another in Summerside.
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