Internal computer networks, a company Web site and staying on top of the latest technology has become so complicated that many major corporations are contracting with firms to handle their information technology needs.
Not only are the outside firms designing their clients? networks and servers, but they are handling all the maintenance, repair and updates, said Laura Willoughby, executive director of the Annapolis-based Anne Arundel Tech Council.
The Tech Council is a nonprofit organization supported by a grant from Anne Arundel Economic Development Department and membership fees, according to the council?s Web site. It has more than 200 member companies.
The council?s mission is to attract new technology companies to the county and help those already in the county attract new business.
Willoughby said for years, companies have been outsourcing their information technology needs because it?s becoming increasingly harder for nonspecialized companies to keep up with the latest trends.
“You?ll have a large corporation that will still have an IT department, but they will outsource key parts of their IT work,” Willoughby said.
She said some companies will contract with a company to build their network of servers, for example, and then contract with another company to handle maintenance and upgrading the network.
Robert Kaitz, president of MyPCGuy Inc., in Glen Burnie, said work for his company has boomed in the 11 years he has been in business.
His company has 11 staff members with about 500 clients.
“People are firing their IT staff and hiring us,” Kaitz said.
“We maintain almost 4,000 systems daily, and we have systems that monitor use and problems. I have four technicians on the road and a few in-house.”
Kaitz said a company will easily spend hundreds of thousands of dollars employing a full-time IT staff when then can spend about $70,000 annually with his company and get essentially the same level, if not better, service.
“We have monitoring systems that alert us to problems before they become an issue,” Kaitz said.
But he added that his company faces competition from a lot of companies that claim they can handle the IT needs of a business.
“There are a lot of companies that don?t have the knowledge or expertise. We do a lot of cleanup for a lot of people,” Kaitz said.
