An Interview with Dan Dempsey, President and CEO, MarketLink Services, Novi
by Laura Blodgett | For Oakland Business Review
Thursday October 02, 2008, 3:30 AM
Novi-based MarketLink Services announced an agreement to provide storage subsystems to California State University, Long Beach to expand their campus-wide video surveillance network.
The Z-SAN storage subsystem from MarketLink offers high-speed, scalable video storage solutions.
Business Review: What is MarketLink?
Dempsey: We are a national business development organization hired by companies to launch their technologies in the U.S from a sales and marketing standpoint. Sometimes we're hired as an incubator, sometimes to expand a division of a larger company. We handle everything from storage to security to networking. We're constantly talking to venture capitalists to see if we can help them go to market.
How did you get into storage subsystems?
A former storage client was facing some finance problems so we took over the U.S. license for the technology and started selling it as a subsystem. We have made a pretty big investment and brought in a lot of inventory to aggressively bring it to market. Storage is the fastest growing sector in the high tech arena. There are so many things that impact storage growth from video and music files to expanded data files to backup requirements. There are many major storage companies, so we are picking our battles and focusing on a few core areas--one being video surveillance.
Why is there opportunity in video surveillance?
In the past people used video cameras and VCRs but that is not a very scalable approach because you have to ship videotapes and store information on antiquated technology. Magnetic tape eventually starts to erode. The great thing about data storage is you can do it over Ethernet so the files can be shipped and viewed simultaneously. You can have people viewing multiple environments at one central location.
Is Southeast Michigan a good place to be for high tech start-ups?
No. Michigan still has the automotive stigma. The biggest problem I have with Michigan's approach to high-tech is that it is industrial and engineering-based in our messaging. The 21st Century Jobs Fund [of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation] speaks to four categories and none of them are high tech. How can we attract high tech companies if we can't speak to them of getting funding?
Another problem is that the Midwestern mindset is to be very conservative and stick a toe in the water before getting in too deep. Unfortunately, high tech cannot afford to grow slowly or someone else will quickly come up with it. If you are in Silicon Valley and can get the right introduction from a venture capitalist, you can get $3 or 4 million; in Michigan that equates to $250,000 dollars. It's just not enough and the business never gets out of the starting gate. There is plenty of great technology and great high tech minds from this market but we don't do enough. It's frustrating for me--I'd like to fish off the local pier more but all I see is carp down there.
Laura Blodgett is a freelance writer.
