Growth occurs quickly in all areas of operation within Expando. The company has operated behind the scenes for more than 20 years, at least towards the public. Expando is now moving from being a pure distributor of equipment from world-leading manufacturers to becoming a developer of self-designed systems and services within rugged computing.
Expando is moving at the beginning of next year to completely new and much larger premises in Sollentuna and is recruiting, for example, salespeople, engineers and people with an interest in technology and defence in general.
“We are no longer just distributors of other companies’ solutions and components, although we continue on this path as well. We are a comprehensive partner in virtually everything related to rugged computing and what we call edge computing, which refers to high-performance digital systems for decision-making in the field, close to the source of data. These are systems that must work regardless of where you are. We are specialists with self-developed solutions in our field and we can meet many needs that exist in the digital and electronic field of defence”, explains Otto Johnsson, CEO at Expando.
More and more edge
For Expando’s customers, there is a big difference today in that the type of activities that were previously concentrated to data centers now take place closer to the critical operations. In defense-related operations, this may imply that data needs to be retrieved and processed close to the front line, perhaps even in a tent somewhere in the middle of battle. The systems and components that Expando supplies must withstand such an environment, and function under external stresses.
“I would personally say that we have only seen the beginning of the development in edge computing. More and more systems will be adapted to harsh conditions, but so far there are not many companies working with this type of solution. We make sure to take advantage of commercially available IT solutions and standard systems that we adapt to new requirements for the armed forces, aerospace and defense industries”, says Otto Johnsson.
Function and availability
The global situation makes it an urgency to deliver new equipment, at least in Europe. It is a reality that you have to deal with and that represents a major challenge for the EU countries’ defense systems.
Expando uses a combination of solutions from the civilian side and from the military. This means that components found in civilian computers can also be used for military applications. For Expando, it is function and availability that decide, only the absolute best solutions that can meet high requirements may be included in the systems.
“We have a high level of delivery and we have that because we start by using equipment that is commercially available and adapt it to our customers’ specific requirements. This allows us to deliver faster than we could do if everything were to be developed from scratch”, adds Otto Johnsson.
Extensive knowledge and experience, adaptation to the customer’s requirements, fast delivery, high availability and the ability to both develop completely new solutions as well as provide replacement components and repair existing systems – all of this makes Expando a unique developer and supplier on the market.
