Lakeside Software puts $6.1M into Metro Detroit; to create 198 jobs

Thursday, March 24, 2011 | Source: Metromode

Lakeside Software started out as a small company with designs to stay small. Michael Schumacher intended to keep the software firm a one-man shop in 1997 when he launched from his home overlooking a lake in Keego Harbor. Today the Bloomfield Hills-based business just signed a six-figure tax incentive deal to create 198 jobs over the next five years.

"This is positioning us for growth," says Dan Salinas, vice president of business development for Lakeside Software.

Lakeside Software creates management software called SysTrack for the Windows operating system. SysTrack monitors and analyzes applications for businesses. The company remained a small operation until the early 2000s, when it began to hit its stride. Now it employs 20 people in Michigan and had designs to move to Palo Alto, California, the heart of Silicon Valley, before a cold call from a Michigan Economic Development Corp officials helped persuade them to stay here.

The firm now has 1,000 customers and the SysTrack system has about 1 million users, up more than 50 percent over the last year. As a result the firm is investing $6.1 million into its Metro Detroit operations. That includes an expansion of its Bloomfield Hills office and the creation of a 73-person satellite office in downtown Ann Arbor.

Lakeside Software currently has 10 open positions in Bloomfield Hills. It expects to begin staffing its new Ann Arbor office and further expanding its Bloomfield Hills base later this year. It expects to create a total of 20 new jobs within the next year. "And there will be more," Salinas says.

Source: Dan Salinas, vice president of business development for Lakeside Software
Writer: Jon Zemke

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