It’s hard to believe that it’s been 20 years since Eric Esposito and I started SilverTech. I officially registered the domain name while at Merrimack College – around May of 1996. Then, I went off to graduate school at UNH where Eric was working on his Computer Science degree. We went full time on this endeavor in early 1999. Until then, we were providing Linux based web hosting, dial-up services and some basic web development from a small 400-square-foot office on Candia Road. We would colocate our servers initially at a Chelmsford, MA-based local Internet Service Provider (Chelmsford Online) in order to gain access to a T3 connection (4.5Mbps).

Things have certainly progressed quite a bit since that point (most for the better)! Our first Manchester, NH base connection to the internet was a 386Kbps Frame Relay – costing us over $1200/mo back at that time. Our first Active Server Pages hosting server was a Window NT 4.0 server that required constant rebooting. We hosted a small number of websites on that server before migrating to a more powerful set of servers. Within a year, we were able to upgrade our Manchester, NH connection to a full T1 (1.5Mbps) – and we were able to move and triple our space to close to 1500 square feet on Elm Street. A few years after that move, we moved again into a 4500 square foot office on South Commercial Street before finally moving here in 2007.

It was only a handful of initial clients and crew that allowed us to start our growth – brands like AmeriFee (later purchased by Capital One), Milton Academy, Lotus and Celarix. The five initial crew members included Eric, Peggy, Bill, Jeff and myself.

We’ve seen the evolution of the web – from brochure-ware, nice to have websites – to it being central to a business’ ability to attract, retain and grow the value of their customer relationships. Businesses are now asking, how do we take a look at what we know about a customer, how do we react to a customer using our websites, our applications, and how do we take that data and improve the customer experience?

As we enter the new year, we’ll be celebrating our anniversary reflecting back on the SilverTech story and how it parallels the evolution of the web. We’ll also be celebrating with a new website and a refined vision statement, “Delivering transformational growth through innovation, creativity, and technology.”

It was only a handful of initial clients and crew that allowed us to start our growth – brands like AmeriFee (later purchased by Capital One), Milton Academy, Lotus and Celarix. The five initial crew members included Eric, Peggy, Bill, Jeff and myself.

We’ve seen the evolution of the web – from brochure-ware, nice to have websites – to it being central to a business’ ability to attract, retain and grow the value of their customer relationships. Businesses are now asking, how do we take a look at what we know about a customer, how do we react to a customer using our websites, our applications, and how do we take that data and improve the customer experience?

As we enter the new year, we’ll be celebrating our anniversary reflecting back on the SilverTech story and how it parallels the evolution of the web. We’ll also be celebrating with a new website and a refined vision statement, “Delivering transformational growth through innovation, creativity, and technology.”