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InterOPS Management Solutions Inc., a managed services provider that underwent a change of CEOs last month, next week will announce a shift in focus to providing services to the financial services industry.
InterOPS last month replaced CEO Edward Mallen and Vice President for Market Jeff Kaplan as part of a change of focus for the 15-month-old company, based in Medford, Mass.
Replacing Mallen as president and CEO is David Myers, who comes to the company after serving as president and chief operating officer at CMeRun Corp.
Myers praised both Mallen and Kaplan, who he said left the company to pursue other opportunities.
The decision to focus on the financial services market in a way brings InterOPS back to its roots. The company was founded in July 2000 by Chris McLellan, the chief architect and vice president of Fidelity Investments Internet Operation Center. Fidelity wanted to market the technology with McLellan at the center, and backed the creation of InterOPS, Myers said. McLellan serves as InterOPS vice president of operations.
InterOPS, with 34 employees, is trying to gain traction in the competitive services arena that includes such veteran services providers as Loudcloud as well as hosting companies that also offer some managed services, such as Digital Island and Digex.
Analysts expect the market to grow 40 percent over the next year, which also should coincide with a shakeout in the space, with the survivors differentiating themselves either by their sheer size or by their focus, Myers said. That fueled much of InterOPS decision to focus on the financial services market.
“When we came out 15 months ago, we were looking at whatever was out there,” Myers said.
With the slowdown in the economy, companies in some verticals were more concerned with price than with ensuring that their Internet operations were always up and running. However, some verticals—such as financial services, including banks, insurance companies and investments firms—still demanded that their Internet operations stayed up as much as possible. That is the arena in which InterOPS now wants to concentrate.
“Focus has never killed a small company,” Myers said.
A look at the customer list shows that InterOPS already was looking in that direction. Some of those customers include Fidelity, Insurance.com and Gomez Inc.