Like many of the Internet's top companies, InfoQuest's birth occurred in a rather unexpected place -- around Norm Dallago's dinning room table. There, Dallago, president and founder, along with his corporate partner, Luke Melhorn designed a data center with unique capabilities not otherwise available to companies in the area.
Now, 15 years later, InfoQuest has grown into a player on the international technology scene. From world-class Web site hosting services to e-marketing to IT, InfoQuest regularly competes with internationally-known businesses. Of course, InfoQuest can offer something those others cannot --a local touch.
"Being small is our competitive edge," says Dallago, "We're a small business, yet we provide an incredible breadth of services. For us, it's all about offering value in everything we do."
And customers agree. InfoQuest's long list of clientèle reads like a who's who of Central Pennsylvania, including the Pennsylvania Bar Association, Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, The Phillips Group, Pennsylvania state government and TECHQuest Pennsylvania. Other customers are from around the country and the world; they respect InfoQuest's ability to get the job done efficiently and effectively, allowing their organizations to enjoy a wealth of Internet hosting and IT and operational services.
"We have a customer in Maryland who put their servers here at InfoQuest," explains Dallago. "Their customers are mainly in Arizona and California and they didn't want to install a room full of servers in their building. By choosing InfoQuest's co-location services, they've expanded their Web capabilities without having to invest in moving to a new location."
So what's InfoQuest's secret? Certainly, it has several, but first and foremost is a flexible business model. It's team, comprised of people who are passionate about the arena in which they've chosen to work, has years of expertise working with computers and networks.
"Our backgrounds come from corporate data centers," states Dallago. "We brought that corporate data center mentality to InfoQuest and then positioned ourselves to compete both locally and nationally without a big level of bureaucracy. We don't have a strict hierarchy --our motto is to get the job done for the customer."
Case in point: Although Dallago is the head of the corporation, he still works InfoQuest's support line one night a week. A self-professed "technology junkie", he brings his pursuit of all things technological into a line of work that's critical to the success of most 21st century businesses, but which is rarely in the limelight.
A second major reason for InfoQuest's continuing success is its determination to stick with Tier-1 provider's bandwidth to decrease response times for customers. This allows InfoQuest to offer lightning-fast speeds, something that wouldn't be possible if the company used a third-party provider.
"We operate behind the scenes," Dallago notes. "We're dependable, consistent. It's the way we believe any company's IT partner should be."