When Arrk first started way back in 1998 the development of large-scale, sophisticated enterprise web applications, using offshore centric globally dispersed teams was, to say the least, uncharted waters. Not that that stopped us from trying!
Our very first project was a large-scale online market place built using Oracle and Sun technologies. Sadly the dot.com for which it was built is no longer around, but the memories for those involved are still strong!
Much like Apple, our humble beginnings started at home (OK, Apple started in Steve Job’s bedroom in Silicon Valley whereas we started at my house in Manchester . . . but you get the drift). For us, the top floor of a large Victorian semi was where it all happened, home as it was then to half a dozen desks, two Sun servers, an ISDN line, a UPS, a bunch of PCs and some very bright, enthusiastic people.
Like all good start-ups we were determined to keep costs low and one of my abiding memories was watching one of our new found friends from India programming in fingerless gloves! We delivered phase one of our first project and quickly gained an order for phase two - and a new customer. Things got hectic. At that time much of our money and attention was being ploughed into developing our links with India and figuring out how to create the ‘best of both worlds’ organisation that Arrk is today.
The year 2001 saw a downturn in fortunes for everything web related and Arrk, like many other technology companies, broadened its outlook engaging in a wider range of projects using more diverse technologies and working for a bunch of Customers from different market sectors.
About this time we decided that it was time to ‘get serious’ about India and we opened our wholly owned Indian subsidiary on our Founders Day, 3rd June 2002. We even had a brand new grown up office to go with it.
The following few years saw rapid growth for Arrk and in 2006 we decided it was time to pause for thought. We had started life with two challenges: how to make offshore work and how to develop large scale enterprise web applications. We decided that we should get back to basics (return to our roots you could say) and re-focus our business on applications development and support, particularly in the web and mobile technology arenas.
Since the launch of our new brand (Arrk 2.0 as we call it) things have got busier than ever. The offshore industry has started to mature, people can now see that there is ‘no such thing as a free lunch’ and as a result more and more Customers are coming to us to learn about the benefits of our hybrid model.
Our vision of a £100m truly hybrid, horizontally integrated company, delivering leading edge technology remains highly achievable. At Arrk we look forward to an exciting and bright future.
Julian Howison Founder and Group MD