FastLane takes off in Halifax
JoAnn Napier
The Ottawa Citizen
What's in a name? In the case of FastLane Technologies Inc. -- which has
managed to detour around the high-tech highways of Toronto and other
Ontario IT bunkers -- the answer is: more than a touch of irony.
Halifax-based FastLane is, in fact, a transplanted Ottawa company. The
move to Atlantic Canada was made possible by a $10-million, fully
repayable loan from partner Newbridge Networks Corp. (which
purchased 25 per cent of FastLane in late 1996.)
Eric Kitchen, 30, executive vice-president of research and development,
is an Ottawa-born technology entrepreneur who founded the company in
1993 along with David Sequin, now FastLane's executive vice-president
of enterprise solutions.
They were a couple of frustrated public servants who had the insight to
spot a commercial opportunity in the work they were doing for the federal
communications department.
And they had the savvy to act on that insight -- borrowing from family to
develop "the DM (directory management) Suite" of seven software
products, which enables clients to manage large networks of NT servers.
In 1996, when the company was deciding where to move their
headquarters, FastLane employed just six people. By January 1999, the
payroll had bloomed to 119. Seventy of these employees are now based
in Halifax, with the remainder in satellite offices scattered across North
America -- in Ottawa, Washington, D.C., Dallas, New York City and
Boston. (FastLane plans to open another two offices -- including one in
Los Angeles -- this year.)
The company focuses almost exclusively on American, European and
Australian clients. Its software is geared to solving problems created when
you start connecting numerous servers together -- so we're talking big
organizations with major directory management needs.
And there's no denying the impressive client list: Nike, Compaq, IBM
Global Services, the U.S. Marine Corps, several Fortune 500 companies.
But when your roster is this broad and your corporate ambitions this
aggressive, why grow your company in Atlantic Canada? During a recent
sojourn in Halifax, the answers became more obvious than they appear
from a Hogtown perch. This is a region rich in universities and where the
cost of doing business is comparatively modest.
There are obvious quality-of-life considerations, but more to the point,
Atlantic Canada offers IT companies competitive advantages that are hard
to come by in larger urban centres: lower operating costs, lower overhead
and lower personal income tax.
While the human resource pool is not huge, it's large enough. Better still,
it's a group loyal to the area -- a huge plus in an industry facing constant
brain-drain pressures.
Judging from some of the company FastLane is keeping down there --
including heavyweight players like Cisco Systems and SHL Systemhouse
-- Atlantic Canada's slow lane seems to have its IT payoffs.
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