Business View Magazine
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is about $7,900 per minute for the average American
company. So, since the beginning of the cyber age, IT
support has been a crucial need for many - and a lu-
crative business for some.
But those companies that do service the computer
needs of others have had to evolve along with the
prevailing curve in order to stay solvent. In a competi-
tive marketplace, those that won’t, or can’t, adapt,
and adapt well and quickly, are more likely to go by
the wayside with imperious speed. When a client has
a data center outage, for any reason, all it wants is to
get back up and running as quickly as possible. So,
understanding everyone’s current needs as well as
the entire spectrum of their cutting edge technology
platforms is absolutely essential.
One New York-based company that has taught itself to
adapt with the changing landscape, and thus is thriv-
ing today, is Lincoln Computer Services. Its founder,
President, and CEO is Ted Cillis, whose experience in
the industry goes back to its beginnings in the early
1980s. “My background was in the mini-computer
world,” he says. “I worked for a third-party company
for 17 years that supported Data General Computers.
Basically, a mini-computer is a mainframe on a small-
er scale and more portable. These systems were in
places like hospitals, the stock market, and banks. In
1998, when we opened our doors, it was that mindset
– to really go into the mini-computer world.”
Cillis explains that Lincoln’s early business model was
to focus on service and support, so it billed itself as a
“systems integration consulting firm.” “Product sales
and things of that nature really wasn’t what we were
looking for,” he explains. “We were looking for main-
tenance – the ‘break/fix’ as we called it – all the way
up till about seven years ago when the term ‘managed
services’ took over. We shifted some of the service
that we do to satisfy the market, but we never changed
AT A GLANCE
WHO:
Lincoln Computer Services
WHAT:
A manages IT service and computer repair
firm
WHERE:
Hicksville, N.Y.
WEBSITE
:
