…A mere three years ago, Bart Hammond rolled the dice on what turned out to be the biggest bet of his professional life: He dropped two promising practices that revolved around Sun and Oracle in order to put all his energies in building his business around Microsoft.
By any measure, the bet paid off as CEO Hammond’s business, Interlink, soared. In two years’ time, the Englewood, Colo.-based company grew to 200 people from 85 people, and more than doubled its revenue to $24 million from $10.5 million. That was good enough to land the company on this year’s VARBusiness 500 list of the largest solution providers in North America. (Interlink debuted on our exclusive list at No. 476.)
Funny thing, Interlink: It doesn’t sell a single Microsoft software license, yet depends on the company for its livelihood. Nearly all of it. What Interlink, along with a growing number of partners like it, does, is build vertical solutions for customers using a broad array of Microsoft technologies whose licenses are sold separately. Today, for example, Interlink routinely works with Microsoft application-development tools, business-software solutions, office-productivity tools, messaging and collaboration products, and database and content-management products to create tailored software solutions that integrate and extend the base stack of products. Hammond’s world has become all-Microsoft, all-the-time. He is so squarely behind the company that even setbacks, such as Blaster security woes or Longhorn product delays, are mere inconveniences with which he simply works around. And they don’t stop him from recommending Microsoft at every turn…
[Via VARBusiness.com : News]
