Sometimes, we have to admit, readers of these Rolling Blogs could be forgiven for thinking nothing interesting in UK ICT happens outside of London or that we are obsessed with doom and gloom. So how about this for a bit of well-needed balance; the news that a US software outfit is creating over 100 jobs in Northern Ireland on the back of a £7.8m plus investment.
Specifically, a firm called Kana Software, which numbers firms like Adidas, Nokia and eBay for its service management/customer service solution, is setting up a new development, consulting services and technical support unit in the truly lovely (if you’ve never been – go) city of Belfast.
What’s also nice about this announcement is that the region was chosen in preference to other options like India, China, the Philippines and Eastern Europe.
The background to the story is that Kana had bought out a local company called Lagan Technologies, an outfit that specializes in government-citizen interaction software, last November. That firm will continue to work under its own brand, but the Belfast site will now be expanded in a kind of JV between the firm and the local regional development agency, Invest Northern Ireland, which is stumping up about £1m taxpayer dosh to seal the deal.
So an indigenous firm that’s built up 17 years’ trading track record has lost its independence, yes – but talent, jobs and investment won’t be taken away, and the headcount will instead double by 2014. That’s got to be good news in a city bracing itself for a very cold wind indeed from Westminster re public support.
The public sector partner in the deal is, unsurprisingly, over the moon, talking about the expansion confirming "again" how Northern Ireland is "the location of choice for an international company seeking a cost competitive environment and a skilled workforce". (You might want to check with Dublin on that one, but fair enough, surely.)
The investor is happy too, telling the press that Belfast immediately becomes its "leading international development hub," serving the needs of its global client base and also "help us to target the European market and [so] become the focal point for the development, deployment and support of current and new technology, creating global opportunities for our business and our employees".
Yes – bit of marketing blurb, admittedly. But at the same time it’s got to be good, surely, that a supplier like that, whose products are used in more than 600 companies worldwide, including approximately half of the world’s largest 100 companies and which in turn employs 300=plus staff in the US, Great Britain, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Australia and Japan, does see value in this acquisition and wants to build – and not asset strip.
Would it have been nicer if Lagan had survived on its own? In a way. But what’s more important is that there are at least some N Irish graduates who will now have interesting, rewarding and stimulating jobs that otherwise might have been withheld from them – and who may, in turn, go off and start their own Lagans – and even better, of course, their own Kanas.
