Appirio extends European reach

Cloud integrator Appirio, known for its crowd-sourcing approach to cloud integration projects, has expanded its presence in Europe with several customer wins just two years after entering the market.

The companies that it is announcing publicly include test preparation company Kaplan, online betting site Sportingbet, and global energy and mining research company Wood Mackenzie. Another global client is media and information services company McGraw-Hill.

Appirio cites mergers and acquisitions in the financial, retail, and media sectors as one key factor driving new business — as companies seek to integrate their information technology assets.

Lori Williams, general manager, Europe, at Appirio, noted in the company's press release:

Organizations want to see business impact in months rather than years, so they can respond to challenges in a timely manner. We are focused on helping businesses become more agile, developing cloud strategies that can be rolled out quickly to help our clients out-manoeuvre the competition. Agile really is becoming the currency of the new economy.

Appirio focuses on cloud integration services related to human capital management (Workday and Cornerstone On Demand) as well as projects centered on the Salesforce platform. As of March, the company counted more than 500 enterprise customers. Its CloudSpokes crowd-sourced development network (with about 75,000 active developers) has been instrumental in helping the relatively small company (about 600 employees) win over big-name accounts.