Xnet investment in Belfast to create 30 new jobs

County Wicklow company, Xnet, which specialises in data storage solutions, is to invest over £600,000 in setting up an Integration and Support Centre and provide 30 new jobs in Belfast over the next three years.

Announcing the investment by Xnet, IDB Chief Executive Leslie Ross said the centre would be engaged in providing data storage solutions utilising leading edge software and hardware.

He added: “Xnet will be involved in implementing integrated solutions for clients’ data storage and their independence allows them to ensure that across platform solutions can be implemented thus providing the best solutions for their clients.

“Securing this investment from a company based in the Republic of Ireland will further develop our ICT sector and provides opportunities to work in the growing data storage market sector which has a predicted annual growth in Europe of almost 80 per cent between 1999 and 2003. It is also consistent with our aim of creating a sustainable knowledge based economy and raises Northern Ireland’s profile as a location for leading edge IT projects.”

Xnet’s Aidan Higgins, said: “As information technologies develop at an ever increasing rate organisations are very aware of the importance of the data they hold. We at Xnet are keen to maximise the market opportunity that this creates and our investment in this integration and Support Centre will provide the technical capacity to expand into the UK.

“Storing data is often a mission critical function and as one recent report concluded ‘over 55 cents of every dollar spent on server platforms will be spent on storage.’”

It is hoped that the establishment of the facility in Northern Ireland will help it break into a UK data storage market currently estimated at £0.76bn with predicted compound annual growth of 65 per cent between 1999 and 2006. (MB)