Nov. 29--In the computer world, the goal is to have a system that will be up and operating 99.999 percent of the time -- also referred to as "five nines."

That's where 5Nines Data, a Madison company that provides a host of computer-related services, gets its name.

Todd Streicher and his partners started 5Nines in 2003 as an outgrowth of Matador Consulting, founded two years earlier to provide advice on Internet marketing and computer applications for business use. 5Nines offers a data center, is an Internet service provider and handles computer support.

Streicher, 44, was born in Portage, grew up in Madison and Oregon, and graduated from Monona Grove High School. His bachelor's degree from UW-Madison is in psychology.

He got into the computer field doing statistical analysis for psychological studies. That led to positions at a medical laboratory analysis company, as a consultant for Compuware Corp., and then with Atos Origin, a worldwide information technology company based in France. Streicher's job was in the Netherlands.

Today, Matador and 5Nines are sister companies. They occupy offices in the Network 222 building, at 222 W. Washington Ave., share 20 employees and bring in more than $2 million in annual revenue. Most of it comes from 5Nines, Streicher says.

Earlier this year, 5Nines opened a second data center in Milwaukee; at the same time, the company installed its own generator and electrical infrastructure at the Network 222 building to support its growing client base.

Q: The economy is still struggling; many companies are paring staff, and yet 5Nines' revenues are up 16 percent over last year and you recently doubled the sales staff to four employees. How are you able to do that?

A: As a smaller business, I see the downturn as an opportunity. Larger, more established companies probably tend to get more hesitant. They have more to lose, I guess.

Q: What prompted you to start Matador Consulting and then 5Nines Data?

A: When my contract was ending in the Netherlands after three years, I wanted to come back to the U.S. and start my own business. I had been working for Atos Origin on a project for Philips Electronics, helping to set up a standardized desktop computer system that would apply to 90,000 employees at 300 locations around the globe. We put up computer servers in Singapore; Sao Paolo, Brazil; and Arlington, Texas, and instructed staff members how to use the system.

It was 2001, and I made a commitment to start Matador with Eric Mansfield, a friend from high school and college, and Rylee Wedekind, my partner in life. Then the dot.com bust happened. But we did it anyway. My goal was to serve smaller businesses that can't afford to hire their own information technology staff.

5Nines started because Matador was advising the Fiore Cos. on turning the former Alliant Energy building into Network 222. We saw the empty data center space that was the telecommunications and server room for Alliant, and that's when the idea for 5Nines was born.

With AT&T next door, all of the fiber optics that connect Madison to Chicago or Minneapolis come right by this building. It is the telco hotel for Madison. And being right Downtown, there's a real geography advantage.

5Nines started as a joint venture with Fiore; we later bought their share and Anton Capela joined as a partner.

Q: Who are some of your customers?

A: Isthmus Engineering was our first client, and is still a customer. We are their IT department.

Rural Wisconsin Health Cooperative, which provides services to 40 rural hospitals around Wisconsin, has space in our data center and we provide them access to networks that let their hospitals share information.

Our new data center in Milwaukee provides redundancy for clients at our Madison data center and we have additional clients there. We don't have any employees in Milwaukee right now but expect to add three to four within the next couple of years.

Q: Where is the information technology world headed?

A: Cloud computing and virtualization. This is actually a tremendous revolution that's been happening, especially the last two years. With this technology, computer services don't have to be dedicated to particular equipment or to a location. It is enabling businesses to free themselves up from investment in the physical computer networking hardware and software. People can subscribe to an application instead of owning it.

Q: Does Madison have a future as an information technology hub?

A: There is a lot of opportunity here. We've got a wealth of good, smart people who are technology-savvy. We are not an information technology center, though.

Chicago is much more wired. Chicago is a Tier 1 city. Madison is more of a Tier 2 city -- nearly everything on the Internet here goes through Chicago. If you're e-mailing across town or buying something on Amazon.com, almost all of it goes through Chicago.

That's our stumbling block to really making Madison an info-tech center. Real estate and electricity are cheaper here, but we have to get the (expanded) infrastructure built out to Madison.

To see more of The Wisconsin State Journal, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.wisconsinstatejournal.com.

Copyright (c) 2009, The Wisconsin State Journal

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.