Alyson Raletz Reporter – Kansas City Business Journal
Iowa-based information technology company LightEdge Solutions Inc. has identified Kansas City as a test market where it will develop a new model for future metropolitan locations.
Among the reasons LightEdge picked Kansas City are its proximity to the company’s Des Moines headquarters, its mix of businesses and the coming Google ultra-high-speed network.
“Our managed cloud IT services require accessibility and bandwidth,” LightEdge Solutions Chairman and CEO Jim Masterson said in an email. “Google’s presence will help enable the adoption of the service model that we are promoting.”
LightEdge focuses on managed IT services, collocation space in data centers, cloud computing and reselling IT hardware. It had roughly $25 million in revenue in 2010, Marketing Director Scott Riedel said.
In addition to Des Moines, the company has offices in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Omaha, Neb.; Minneapolis; and Moline, Ill.
The company’s owner, Anschutz Investment Co., which Denver industrialist Phil Anschutz leads, targeted Kansas City as a place to build up infrastructure plus a sales and marketing force that LightEdge aims to duplicate in the next 18 to 24 months in other markets. Anschutz founded Qwest Communications International Inc., which sold last year to CenturyLink
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