Multiven, a company specialising in providing vendor-independent network hardware support services, is moving its headquarters from Silicon Valley to Zurich.
The company was founded in 2005 by Peter Alfred-Adekeye, in response to growing number of customers at his former company complaining there was no service available to help their networks work well.
"We started with one single agenda to create maintenance services for the internet, irrespective of the underlying software, hardware or services," Alfred-Adekeye told IT Pro
Alfred-Adekeye said customers face three problems. The first is that while all hardware uses internet protocol (IP), if the customer has more than one vendor and there is a network problem, neither provider will take ownership of the problem as a whole.
Secondly, when customers have a problem they are normally dealt with initially via an outsourced call centre of non-specialists. This, Alfred-Adekeye claims, can draw out the support process unnecessarily and be frustrating for the customer.
"You would not send a work experience student in a hospital to deal with a bleeding patient, you would send a surgeon. So when your critical hardware is the patient, why call someone who is not trained for the job either?" he said.
The final problem is what Alfred-Adekeye calls forced obsolescence', where hardware manufacturers stop supporting a particular item after an arbitrary amount of time normally five years.
In order to solve these problems, Multiven brings together more than 700 experts in computer networks via a "professional, invitation-only social network". This brings customers together with networking experts straight away, regardless of who made the hardware or whether or not it is still within its original vendor support period. In turn, this leads to quicker resolution and more satisfactory results, according to Alfred-Adekeye.
The decision to move to Zurich was brought about as a result of the company's maturing as well as a greater opportunity to access new markets, including the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
Silicon Valley was the ideal place to start in 2005, Alfred-Adekeye told IT Pro, because it was set up in a way that would put companies on the path to growth. However, he added that now the time has come to move to a more central location and explore the emerging opportunities in an increasingly globalised world.
