Article on the history of Entisys and Virtualization featuring my quotes about Entisys and my current enviorment - San Francisco Business Times

1. Far-seeing Entisys cashes in on virtualization - San Francisco Business Times 9/6/11 12:39 PM
Far-seeing Entisys cashes in on virtualization
Concord-based Entisys Solutions Inc. is a family-run computer sales and consulting
company that got ahead of the virtualization trend that underlies cloud computing, and
its revenue has shot up in recent years to about $50 million.
Founded in 1988 as a computer skills training center in Walnut Creek by CEO Mike
Strohl’s father, George, Entisys has built one of the largest virtualization consulting
businesses on the West Coast.
“It’s due to incredible planning and execution, and then a whole lot of luck,” Strohl said.
“It is quite the wild ride.”
From 2009 to 2010, revenue rose from $26 million to $47.8 million, and Strohl predicts it
will be up another 10 percent this year. Virtualization allows software to use hardware
more efficiently, reducing operating costs, increasing reliability and easing maintenance.
Entisys has experts in the application, desktop, server and storage virtualization areas,
as well as in other technologies.
Today the company has 83 employees, most of them in Northern California, the rest in
Irvine where Entisys bought a company called Agile360 in 2008.
Entisys has 11 job openings listed on its website, mostly in various types of engineering
roles, which are particularly challenging to fill as demand for technical talent is current-
ly high.
Strohl originally started working for his father’s company part-time in sales, but eventu-
ally took over the company after his father’s death in 1994. The elder Strohl’s widow,
Elizabeth Strohl, is now the company’s chief financial officer, while her son, Matt
Strohl, is chief technical officer.
Entisys got lucky in 1995 when it worked on a project that involved the use of Citrix ap-
plication virtualization technology, Strohl said. That year, Santa Clara-based Citrix Sys-
tems Inc. went public at less than $2.50 a share, and this week Citrix has been trading
at around $58, with a market capitalization of nearly $11 billion.
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/print-edition/2011/09/02/far-seeing-entisys-cashes-in-on.html Page 1 of 3

2. Far-seeing Entisys cashes in on virtualization - San Francisco Business Times 9/6/11 12:39 PM
Patrick Hoge covers technology for the San Francisco Business Times.
(Page 2 of 2)
“We liked what they did. Citrix was small at the time,” Strohl said.
Entisys sent notices to customers through the mail — email and fax were not so com-
mon — offering help with Citrix implementations.
Within a year, Entisys was a Citrix platinum partner, and it has continued to grow, par-
ticularly in the health care, state and local government arenas, Strohl said.
In 2002, Entisys got pitched by “another little company” with virtualization technology
that Strohl said looked promising for building its data center practice, Palo Alto-based
VMware Inc.
“My step-brother, our CTO, came in and grabbed me and said ‘You’ve got to look at
this,’” Strohl said.
VMware subsequently went public in 2007 and exploded into a huge success that has
recently boasted a market capitalization of more than $33 billion.
As an early VMware partner, Entisys was able to get great access to technology execu-
tives at large companies, which proved pivotal for the company’s rapid growth.
Brian Paine, director of information technology at Western Precooling Systems, a Fre-
mont provider of cooling systems to food growers and shippers that is an Entisys cus-
tomer, recalls Entisys promoting virtualization a decade ago.
“They were dabbling in virtualization when it first came out. They were really kind of
ahead of the game at that point,” Paine said.
Last week, Paine had a piece of equipment crash that in the past would have taken sev-
eral weeks to replace, but with a virtualized server system in place, he was able to do
the job in a single day.
“I’ve been doing business with Entisys for 10 years. Our environment is a testimonial to
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/print-edition/2011/09/02/far-seeing-entisys-cashes-in-on.html Page 2 of 3

3. Far-seeing Entisys cashes in on virtualization - San Francisco Business Times 9/6/11 12:39 PM
the work they do,” Paine said.
Patrick Hoge covers technology for the San Francisco Business Times.
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/print-edition/2011/09/02/far-seeing-entisys-cashes-in-on.html Page 3 of 3