California tech firm Protelligent opens Spokane Valley location

A Southern California tech company, Protelligent Inc., has opened an office in Spokane Valley and will compete in the crowded market of firms offering technology services to businesses.

The Spokane Valley office is the firm’s first location in the Pacific Northwest. The company plans to offer a variety of managed services for small to midsize companies. The company’s focus recently has been on providing help to medical facilities and clinics, said Chris George, Protelligent’s chief executive officer.

The company sells cloud-based backup and recovery services to businesses, system monitoring, and technology strategy development.

While many firms offer cloud-based recovery and backup, Protelligent offers its own secure and protected data center equipment, George said. “Most IT companies do not own their cloud environments,” George said.

When a company is leasing backup racks inside a data center, resolving a customer’s problem takes longer, he said.

Instead of sending help alerts to the company that physically manages the racks, Protelligent can assign engineers who have full access to the equipment and systems that a customer relies on, he said.

“That’s one way we can offer some unique solutions for midsize businesses because we own our own infrastructure,” George said.

The Valley location will be staffed for now with three workers, including two engineers. Chuck Edwards, the site’s senior engineer, said Protelligent sees itself as a partner with some of the other Inland Northwest tech-service providers. “We don’t always see those guys as competition,” Edwards said. “We feel there is a lot of room for everyone to partner and help deliver solutions to companies” in this market.