KOCHI: The founders of the Kochi-based Ideamine Technologies and Empressem Technologies never imagined emailing a sales query to the Chicago-based Netrix LLC would prove to be a turning point in their business career.‘’We just wanted to know if Netrix was interested in availing of our services. To our surprise, we got a reply they would like to buy our company,” said Jyothis Joseph, founder, and CEO of Ideamine Technologies, and vice-president, business development, Empressem Technologies, and Ajeesh Kumar, vice-president, Empressem Technologies.
One thing led to another, and last month Netrix LLC announced the acquisition of the two IT companies.
The takeover gains significance as it is the second buyout of a Kerala-based IT services company by a US company in recent times. In September, the New York Stock Exchange-listed Nielsen had acquired the Kochi-based firm Visual IQ. “Once the takeover discussion was initiated, we learned Netrix had been monitoring closely the performance of Ideamine Technologies and Empressem Technologies. They put forward the takeover offer after analysing the performance of our companies,” Jyothis and Ajeesh, said in an interaction with Express.
Started operation in 2007, Ideamine Technologies had grown as one of the pioneers in server management. It also offers services for Azure, Google Cloud, magneto hosting, cloud strategy and implementation, remote server management, windows server management, Linux server management and outsourced web hosting support.
Founded in 2010, Empressem Technologies offers services such as mobile application development, (iOS and Android), Augmented Reality Applications, Enterprise Mobility Solutions, IoT Solutions, Web Application Development, Applications Platforms, Cloud, Web Technologies, and Rest Soap among others. “The IT industry has witnessed tremendous changes over the past 10 years. If the bygone years were an era of IT products, the future is in IT services like server management. Players in the industry have to change in accordance with the new development in the tech world,” they said.
According to them, automation has not caused employment loss in the IT sector. Instead, it created new job opportunities. “The only difference is one has to do a job in a new way and the candidate should be equipped for it,” they said. “When Ideamine and Empressem started to grow, many people advised us to launch other verticals. But we ignored such suggestions and went ahead, focusing on cloud and mobility. Since we focus on single vertical, the companies could perform well, which later led to the takeover by the US company,’’ they said.
Ideamine Technologies had won the Amazon Web service partnership excellence award. Jyothis and Ajeesh will continue as directors of the company for the next three years.
Started in 1989, Netrix has presence in 11 metro areas in the US and employs more than 450 people. The company offers services in network infrastructure, security systems, unified communications, mobility, cloud and managed services, hardware and software development.