20120206-NEWS--5-NAT-CCI-CL_--
2/3/2012
2:58 PM
Page 1
FEBRUARY 6 - 12, 2012
CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS
WWW.CRAINSCLEVELAND.COM
5
Demand for data center services fuels BlueBridge expansion By CHUCK SODER csoder@crain.com
BlueBridge Networks LLC is betting big on future demand for its expanded list of data center services. The Cleveland company plans to triple the amount of data center space it currently leases. It’s in the process of finalizing leases on space for two new data centers: a 10,000square-foot center in downtown Cleveland and a 22,000-square-foot center located elsewhere in Northeast Ohio, said CEO Jeff Levine, who declined to say where the larger center will be. Plus, BlueBridge last year signed a lease on 14,000 square feet on the fifth floor of the Sterling Building in downtown Cleveland. Once renovated, the space will allow the company to expand its existing, 20,000-squarefoot data center across the hall. So that’s 46,000 square feet of new data center space for a company that has about 23,000 square feet today, including a small backup data center in Mayfield Heights. BlueBridge expects to fill that space partly because demand for data center
services is growing among small and midsize companies, which often would rather have outside specialists house and sometimes manage their computer servers, Mr. Levine said. Last summer, BlueBridge launched an overhauled lineup of services, which has helped the company fill almost all the remaining space in its downtown data center, according to Mr. Levine and Kevin Goodman, BlueBridge managing director of business development. The company last year became a reseller of enterprise-level computer hardware and software. Now, though, BlueBridge customers no longer must buy servers at all: The company lets customers pay a fee to use
servers that BlueBridge owns. The new services played a big role in helping BlueBridge grow sales by 60% and hit a new revenue record in 2011, Mr. Goodman said, though he declined to specify a dollar figure. They also helped BlueBridge win about 12 new customers who otherwise probably would not have done business with the company, he said. “We grew more in one year than the previous five years combined,” Mr. Goodman said.
Serving as ‘trusted adviser’ BlueBridge decided to expand its lineup of services partly because a group of CEOs and business owners with whom Mr. Levine was
meeting regularly said they’d rather work with a company that could provide guidance on all sorts of information technology issues. “They were really looking for someone who would be their trusted adviser,” Mr. Levine said. The broader list of services was a big plus for Cleveland HeartLab Inc., said Arkadiy Kheyfets, director of IT for the company, which tests biological samples to determine whether a patient is at risk of heart problems. When Mr. Kheyfets asked about using BlueBridge’s data center, he was glad to learn that the company now sold hardware, he said. “We were building our environment, and back then we needed
servers, switches, routers and firewalls,” said Mr. Kheyfets, who had worked with BlueBridge when he was employed by clinical trial software provider Datatrak International Inc. of Mayfield Heights. BlueBridge plans to spend $6 million from its profits to renovate the two new data centers and the new space in the Sterling Building, Mr. Goodman said. The company wants the location outside the city of Cleveland to better serve customers in that geography, Mr. Levine said. The company employs 10 people and the equivalent of another 20 full-time contractors, and likely will hire another 15 people this year, Mr. Goodman said. ■
Crain ad exec promoted to sales manager Nicole Mastrangelo has been named advertising sales manager of Crain’s Cleveland Business, taking the role vacated by Mike Malley, who has left to become chairman of his family’s well-known Cleveland business, Malley’s Chocolates. In addition, Adam Mandell has assumed the title of senior account executive at Crain’s, and Andy Hollander has joined the sales team as an account executive.
Mastrangelo
Mandell
Ms. Mastrangelo has been an account executive at Crain’s since March 2007. Prior to that, she worked at the National Association of College Stores in Oberlin. Mr. Mandell joined Crain’s as an account executive in 1996 from the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Mr. Hollander is a graduate of Aquinas College in his hometown of Grand Rapids, Mich. He spent five years in sales in the food industry before a six-year career in sales at The Roanoke Times in Virginia. Mr. Malley has led Crain’s sales team since December 2006. Brian Tucker, Crain’s publisher and editorial director, said that under Mr. Malley’s leadership, “Crain’s experienced steady, significant growth in both digital and event sales.” He said Mr. Malley “helped broaden our array of print-oriented sales programs in order to help our advertisers better achieve their marketing objectives. We wish him and Malley’s Chocolates the very brightest, and prosperous, future.” ■
Improving lives here…
…and around the world.
www.uakron.edu/innovation UA researchers have created a glucose sensing contact lens that changes color as blood sugar levels rise and fall, so diabetics can easily monitor their health status.