The IT industry is starting to pick up again in the wake of the economic downturn, according to a boss of one of Bermuda's leading IT firms.

Walter Burgess, director of telephony and network services at CCS Group Ltd., who was congratulating network consultant Simon Geary on attaining his Microsoft Certified Master: Exchange Server 2007 qualification, said a number of customers had been watching their budgets when the recession first struck, but were now looking to bring some of their projects back on line.

Mr. Burgess also stressed the importance of having engineers physically on site to work with their clients in light of several businesses outsourcing their operations overseas.

"We have definitely over the last year seen our customers have been tightening their belts," he said.

"A lot of them have been going through a phased approach and roll out.

"But internationally in the last two months, from the data we see, we believe there is an uptick in the right direction, with vendors we collaborate with on the East Coast and the Caribbean showing a similar pattern."

As far as outsourcing is concerned, Mr. Burgess said his client base requires "bums on seats" as his company's engineers develop good relationships with their customers through the provision of a key technical service, with nothing beating the face-to-face interaction and personal touch which isn't always there on the telephone.

Mr. Geary, who undertook a three-week training programme at Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington state, to become one of a select number of people with the certification and the only one on the Island, said the best time to do training was during an economic downturn, so the timing worked out perfectly when he booked the course in June.

During his test, he had to fulfill a lab-based exercise, building a lab, which was then broken by the examiners and he had to fix. And Mr. Geary, who has worked for CCS out of its offices in Par-la-Ville Road for the past five years, servicing everyone from international business to local firms in Bermuda, plans to keep going back for further training as Microsoft upgrades its network every three to four years.

"I like to push myself, I go on a lot of training courses and keep my skills up, which I think is important in IT and beneficial to both me and the company," he said.

Hailing from Glasgow in Scotland, he went straight into IT after graduating from university 11 years ago, installing PCs for retailer Marks & Spencer and carrying out contract work, before moving into server support and consultancy, including working for Rolls Royce in Derby as a senior network consultant.

Microsoft Exchange is the email server software used by the majority of companies in Bermuda, and indeed throughout the world.

The last word went to Mr. Burgess, who said that clients becoming even more demanding in this technologically advanced and linked up age, wanting the latest state-of-the-art development and keep one step ahead of the competition.

"I have been in the business for 20 years and vendors are really keen to build onto their specific certifications," he said.

"It ensures that the products are being serviced and supported in a manner that they feel best supports their product and it is being pushed by both the customer base and vendors to make that complete circle.

"For such a small country, I think we have a very high quality of professionals in such a concentrated area supporting the IT needs of everyone from exempt companies to local businesses."