A French-based international managed services company is extending its Canadian presence by buying a Montreal data centre provider.
LinkByNet, which has been in Canada for three years and has offices in France, Hong Kong and Mauritius, has bought Plutoniq, which serves large and mid-sized organizations across the country.
It’s the first step in a campaign to get more business in this country, said Matthieu Demoor, LinkByNet’s head of partnerships. It plans to open a Toronto office shortly to attract more customers outside Quebec.
“We want to have growth with the acquisition, but also in the rest of Canada.”
It’s part of a global growth strategy for the next five year to double its revenue, he added.
LinkByNet customers include the Michelin tire company, Nissan, lens maker Essilor and the Canadian Automobile Association (CAA). It has some 500 staff in four countries.
Plutoniq is attractive because it has expertise in open source solutions, Demoor said. “It’s a field where we want to go deeper,” he said.
Also, he said, many of Plutoniq’s customers are advertising and Web agencies, where LinkByNet wants to be stronger.
“With Plutoniq we have both the customers and the solutions that will help us increase markets.”
For Toronto LinkByNet plans to hire at least 10 sales and technical staff, he added.
“We plan to be a leader in the application managed services market in Canada,” Demoor said. “To do this we need presence in the Ontario market because it’s a dynamic one.”
Headquartered in Saint-Denis, France, LinkByNet has had co-located servers in a number of Montreal and Toronto-area data centres for several years.
Services it offers includes infrastructure, operating system and application management. It also has consulting servers covering security, database structure and load testing.
Last December its Canadian data centres were ISO2000 certified for corporate processes, Demoor said.