PFH TECHNOLOGY Group has opened its new €1.2 million technology experience centre which will support the creation of up to 20 graduate jobs.

The new centre, in Sandyford, Co Dublin, will enable customers to see complex software and hardware configurations in use before they purchase. PFH chief executive Paul Hourican said the centre also has the ability to demonstrate a “live site failure” and how the systems would respond to it.

Mr Hourican said technologies from HP, Citrix and Microsoft would form the cornerstone of the facility which has the ability to demonstrate over 50 different technology demonstrations.

He said the company had made a decision to start hiring graduates again and then training them in technology.

“There’s a lot of good talent out there from all disciplines,” said Mr Hourican. “We’ll just have to train them in the IT piece.”

The genesis of the centre was last year’s acquisition of the Irish operations of storage technology specialist Redstone for a reported £2.25 million (€2.6 million). Mr Hourican said its demonstration centre had been a core part of Redstone’s business and the kit inherited as part of the deal was now in use in the new centre.

PFH has been growing rapidly in the last five years largely through acquisition. In addition to Redstone, during that period it has purchased CK Business Systems and the enterprise communications divisions of Siemens.

“We grew organically up to 2006 and had turnover of £20 million, but I felt that was as far as we could go without acquisitions,” said Mr Hourican.

He said the expanded group had a target of €55 million in revenues this year and based on the performance in the first five months of the year is on track to achieve this. PFH now has more than 1,400 customers ranging from government bodies and semi-states, to large multinationals and small businesses.

Although the focus has largely moved to the provision of services, Mr Hourican said PFH will still ship 12,000 PCs this year.