Red Anvil LLC, a Web-based application development firm, has acquired the majority of the assets of Resilient Networks, its neighbor and strategic partner at 3701 W. Burnham St., Milwaukee.
Alec Ellsworth, founder of Resilient Networks, will now serve as the vice president of network services for Red Anvil.
Shawn Longtine, co-founder of techworks llc, a Wauwatosa-based information technology (IT) management and consulting firm, said he has sold his portion of techworks to his former partner, Don Muehlbauer, and joined Red Anvil as vice president of sales.
With the additional capabilities, expertise and technology, Red Anvil is now able to act as a full-service IT company that can offer businesses any technology accommodation, with the exception of wiring, said Neil Biondich Jr., chief executive officer of Red Anvil.
Red Anvil and Resilient Networks were working as strategic partners when they moved into the building on Burnham Street last August. The companies also were partnering with CableCom LLC, a fiber optic infrastructure firm, which also is a tenant in the building.
Red Anvil continues to partner with CableCom for wiring services, Biondich said.
Red Anvil changed its name from SPS Productions and dropped its creative department to focus on Web development when it moved to Burnham Street, Biondich said.
The timing was right for Red Anvil to gain Ellsworth and Longtine, Biondich said.
"Red Anvil was hosting Web sites, and my world was about connectivity and security," Ellsworth said. "When you put the two together, you get this."
Longtine was planning to sell his portion of techworks and start a new technology company when he joined a discussion with Ellsworth and Red Anvil and decided to add his IT outsourcing expertise to the mix, Biondich said.
"A tremendous amount of talent efforts have come together in one form," Longtine said.
Ellsworth co-founded Inc.Net, a high-speed Internet service provider for businesses, in 1994. He sold that company to Time Warner Telecom in 1998.
In 2003, Ellsworth founded Resilient Networks with plans to offer enterprise-class technologies and services to small and medium-sized businesses.
Longtine co-founded techworks in 2001 as a virtual IT department and consulting firm for small to medium-sized businesses.
Combined, Red Anvil’s new direction will offer services on the cusp of technology innovation to the small and mid-sized business market at reasonable prices, Biondich said.
Red Anvil currently leases 13,000 square-feet of the building, which is a combination of previously vacant space and space previously occupied by Red Anvil and Resilient Networks.
Red Anvil plans to grow into a total of 22,000 square feet by leasing the additional vacant space in the building, Biondich said. CableCom continues to be a tenant of the back third of the building.
Red Anvil currently has 15 full-time employees but expects to grow to a staff of 40 people and move into the option space on the second floor within the next year, Biondich said.
The occupied space is a combination of office space and state-of-the-art network operations centers (NOCs) that Red Anvil has built with a combined effort of technology from Resilient Networks and Red Anvil. The NOC can serve businesses that wish to co-locate their servers or have Red Anvil host the servers for them, Biondich said.
Red Anvil also has private suites for businesses to lease for their own NOC with unsupervised access, Biondich said.
The high-tech disaster recovery and security that the NOCs offer to businesses make them difficult to destroy or even shut down, Biondich said. The NOCs feature industrial cooling, security cameras, dry fire suppression, and redundant, uninterrupted power monitored by Red Anvil through a Web-based application, Biondich said.
Electricity for the building is backed up by two battery bays that can each run for 196 minutes, Biondich said. If both battery bays are used during a power outage, a generator immediately kicks in, he said.
"The NOCs were built to exact specification, right down to anti-static tiles," Biondich said.
Resilient Networks and Ellsworth bring several assets to Red Anvil, including the ability for the company to become its own Internet service provider (ISP) and an offering of point-to-point secure wireless business-class Internet connections using WiMax technology, Ellsworth said.
"It is a hybrid fiber optic wireless network," he said.
WiMax technology involves a combination of radio frequency, microwave and optical media technology to connect business networks from building to building through wireless bridges.
The result is a bandwidth that is comparable to high-end leased lines. From the inside, businesses experience the same Internet service, including the option of voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), as they would with a DSL, cable or T1 connection, Elsworth said.
From the outside, Red Anvil is utilizing rooftops to send data securely from an antenna that transmits radio frequency waves to a device that uses optical technology to connect to a business network, connecting the business to the Internet.
For example, a business that has a downtown Milwaukee location and a location in Franklin can use the same Internet network, Ellsworth said.
Red Anvil’s current range of bandwidth offerings begins at three times the bandwidth of a T1 connection, can be installed within 48 hours and is more affordable for businesses by avoiding the cost of installation of a wire network, Ellsworth said.
Through cooperation of multiple buildings in the downtown and surrounding area, Red Anvil can service Milwaukee and the surrounding suburbs and plans to expand as its customer base grows.
"We sharpened our services to become a local technology partner to the small and mid-sized business market and to give them the best bang for their IT dollars," Biondich said.
June 10, 2005, Small Business Times, Milwaukee, WI
